


Fly Me to the Moon

by Curator



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, F/M, Non-Linear Narrative, P/T and J/P happy endings (trust me), Post-Episode: s07e25 Endgame (Star Trek: Voyager), Pre-Canon, Secret Mission, fleeting, plasma drifts, too many episode references to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:01:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 25,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29201769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curator/pseuds/Curator
Summary: Kathryn Janeway and Tom Paris never met each other years beforeVoyager.Never served on a covert mission together.Never fell in love.Never planned a future together.Nope, never happened.Because a secret like that could lead to some … complex dichotomies.
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway & Tom Paris, Kathryn Janeway/Tom Paris
Comments: 266
Kudos: 80





	1. Prologue — You Didn’t Have to Keep Your Promise

**Author's Note:**

> _Fly me to the moon_  
>  _Let me play among the stars_  
>  _Let me see what spring is like_  
>  _On a-Jupiter and Mars_  
>  _In other words, hold my hand_  
>  _In other words, baby, kiss me_  
>  — _Fly Me to the Moon_ , Frank Sinatra (and others)
> 
> ***
> 
>   
> Universes of gratitude to Caladenia for thoughtful, thorough beta work that helped smooth this story over some stormy spaces; I deeply appreciate her curious mind and discerning eye. Also, some elements of Tom’s experience on Caldik Prime are thanks in part to discussions with SeemaG, who shares my love for her Icarus-Flyboy. 

**New Zealand, 2371**

He exits the warden’s office, grey pants legs smooth, ankle monitor gone. 

She stands from her chair and, in a continuation of a performance worthy of a Federation Theatrical Association Award, tells the Rehabilitation Commission officials, “Starfleet appreciates your cooperation. Thank you.”

He falls into step with her. They walk to the shuttle, grass crunching underfoot, and she reminds herself that it’s impossible for the penal settlement’s monitoring system to detect the ache in her chest.

The hatch closes and she taps her console. Thrusters and engines power up.

“So,” he settles into the passenger seat, “I’m an ‘observer.’ That means you’re not my commanding officer, right?”

“Technically, no.” Her cheeks become warm. “But we’ll behave as if I am.”

The shuttle rises.

He looks out a viewport.

She thinks of the stories he told her about when he was a little boy staring out of his bedroom window, hand held flat so he could pretend it was a shuttle and he was inside, soaring far from the house in San Francisco, far from parents and sisters and expectations. 

His shoulders relax. 

“Thanks, Kath.” Stars appear through the viewports. “You didn’t have to keep your promise. I wasn’t even sure if you would remember.”

“I remember.” Her voice is soft. “But you know we can’t —”

“I know.”

There’s a beep from her console — the self-extracting algorithm she programmed before leaving headquarters.

“Uh-oh.” A corner of her mouth curls upward. “Looks like I’m losing helm control. Want to take over from your station?”

A familiar grin spreads across his face.

Her breastbone tightens.

“Letting an ‘observer’ fly a Starfleet shuttle? Sounds to me like someone’s breaking protocol.”

His fingers tap and the shuttle arcs toward the moon. She knows he’ll take the route she loves — a loop through the gravitational field, a swing around New Berlin, then a dip so close to the Sea of Clouds that it’s like she could touch them. No one else can maneuver a shuttle like this. No one.

“I’m not breaking protocol.” The first glimmers of lunar glow brighten his side of the shuttle, catching his blond hair. Her father called her Goldenbird, a nickname that became a prophecy for meeting this golden-haired man who can coax any craft to take wing. “I’m just bending it a little.”

“I see.” 

They loop through the gravitational field. 

He wipes one sweaty palm, then the other on his trousers. How long has it been since he flew? He’s worked so hard all his life to project a calm he doesn’t feel. Even she used to be fooled by it sometimes. 

“If the Rehab Commission lets me out of prison after this mission, then where does that put us, exactly?”

She shakes her head, but he barrels on. 

“I mean, I won’t waste anybody’s time by even trying to reapply to Starfleet, and that takes care of —”

Her eyelids flutter closed.

“I’m engaged.”

The shuttle jerks. Her eyes snap open as he corrects the axis of their swing around New Berlin.

“Well, yeah,” he attends to his console, “I mean, of course. I’m sure you did better. A lot better. Good for you. Good for your fiancé. That’s great.”

She wants to tell him she’s sorry.

But she’s not.

She won’t risk this mission, won’t risk the chance to get him reinstated like Admiral Patterson promised her might be possible, won’t risk his future or hers for a past they both need to forget.

Outside the viewports, the Sea of Clouds becomes so close it’s like she could touch them.

But she knows she can’t.


	2. C’mon

**San Francisco, 2367**

It’s called Fleeting and there are three rules. 

First, officers must use their real names. No one wants to be confused or caught off guard if they ever have a posting together. 

Second, no cheating on partners or spouses. That’s what holograms are for. 

Third, no command personnel can participate. 

Lieutenant Commander Kathryn Janeway swallows the knot of anger in her throat about that last one. She has her orders starting tomorrow morning — science. 

Again. 

She’s never going to break into command.

But her assignment is two months in space, small craft, classified mission — which means there’s no way to know if anyone onboard will be remotely appealing or even sexually compatible.

So she’s down for Fleeting.

Everyone knows Fleeting starts at the bar. So Kathryn drops her duffel bag in her room within a Starfleet short-term housing facility, uses the toilet, and squints at her hair in the mirror.

She glances toward the replicator. 

It’s getting late. Better pre-flight.

She orders a whiskey, neat. 

Another. 

Another.

Goddamn, that’s good.

One more.

Yes.

She heads for the lift, the hallway a little wobbly in front of her. 

Tonight will probably be the same as every other night she’s visited the rooftop bar — stars and ships in orbit twinkling high above the temperature control bubble, couples-for-a-moment wasting time on the dance floor, and plenty of officers looking for physical release before getting sent who-knows-where. San Francisco etiquette calls for uniforms, which means she’ll have to inform more than one person that her blue signifies spatial sciences, not medical, so, no, she doesn’t have doctor’s hands, interest in their nurse fantasy, or any desire to be their counselor.

She’s barely activated the sensor to summon the lift when the doors part.

Eyebrows.

Wispy-blond eyebrows she could smooth with her thumb. 

Broad chest, slim waist, long fingers — and lips crooked in a devilish grin. 

“I was headed toward the roof, but I’ll bet you’re better-looking than anyone I’ll see up there.”

He’s an ensign. Red-uniformed with a long, straight nose that could nuzzle her neck.

And he’s leering at her. 

She’s ready to flirt back — a witticism about the importance of a proper environmental survey before selecting a sample — when his eyes fix on hers. They’re blue, piercing, and she shivers with the distinct impression of being naked. Not just in the clothing sense. It’s as if he can see everything. 

Her frustration at not being able to secure a command position.

Her discomfort when she has to spend time with her mother. 

Her need to pull off his uniform.

He steps backward, blinking.

She wants to ask if he felt that, too.

But what she says is, “C’mon,” and tilts her head in the direction of her room.

He hesitates and she knows, she _knows_ , he did feel something when their eyes met — but he just wants someone to fuck tonight, slick bodies and shaky legs and a warm, tight place for his dick.

Fine. She doesn’t want actual connection, either. After Justin … after Mark … there’s no reason to … to try to …

Her fingers press to her forehead. The whiskeys are still hitting her — that witty comeback she had in mind, what was it?— but she should have had more to drink.

The red-uniformed ensign grabs her wrist, pulls her hand from her forehead, and presses his lips to the exact spot where the ache forms. His hips push hers and she’s moving backward, away from the lift, and he says, “I’m Tom.”

“Kath—” she begins, then he tastes like replicated bourbon, tongue sliding on hers, little breaths puffing from his nose. Her chest tingles and want pulls low in her belly and her mind is slipping away on whiskey and bourbon and how good his hands feel on her ass.

They get to her door and her thumb darts out to the keypad.

He’s already unfastening her uniform.

It’s breathy, eager sounds. It’s cool air on her skin. It’s her falling backward onto the bed, already topless, not sure when he unhooked her bra but not caring, either. 

Her boots are gone.

Her panties are gone.

He’s on top of her, legs between her own, squinting at her in the darkness. “How drunk are you?”

“I’m all right.”

She hasn’t been all right in a long time.

But her fingertips trace the bumpy veins of his erection — when did he take off his uniform? did she take off his uniform? — and his entire body shudders.

“We’re good.” Her hips rise toward his. “We’re —”

And she cries out as he does what she wants, he pushes inside her and for a perfect second she can’t breathe. Everything shimmers and she’s brilliant and she’s stupid and she’s tight between her legs, so tight, and he’s teasing her, pushing in and pulling almost out before pushing in again, and he’s mean and he’s sweet and her legs are trembling because Fleeting isn’t usually this good and they’re playing, her and Tom, they’re playing a push-pull game and a laugh bubbles from her stomach and she says, “I like you.”

He pulls out.

All the way out.

What?

Weren’t they having fun?

There are hands on her hips and his voice is rough. “Turn around.”

She scrambles, him guiding her so she can move faster, and the bedding is soft under her hands and knees.

He pushes in again and it’s different.

Rougher.

Meaner.

Oh. This is good, too. This is very good. 

He’s slamming now, her breasts swinging, interior muscles clenched against him, and she’s crying out — faster, that’s it, oh my God — and he’s muttering and there’s pressure, wonderful pressure between her legs, and she catches a piece of what he’s saying — vector three-two-zero, starboard; thruster half; vector two-eight-zero, port — and his fingers find her nipple and pinch, hard, and pleasure-pain spiderwebs out and her head jerks back and the tightness between her legs bursts into waves down the insides of her thighs and she shouts — yes! — and her arms collapse.

His rhythm falls apart.

His hips jerk and he cries out — fuck, yeah — and she snakes a lazy arm around, cups his balls and strokes them, prolonging his orgasm as she quivers in her own, and he falls on her back, dead weight, knocking her flat on the bed.

They breathe, a tangled mess of arms and legs and loose-limbed bodies that can’t stop trembling.

“Am I … am I crushing you?” His words are slurred.

She’s having trouble getting air, but the weight of another person feels good.

“I’m all right.”

There’s a drowsy chuckle. Is he one of those guys who falls asleep right after sex? “Every time you say that, I believe you less.”

He pulls out and rolls to the side and she’s cold, so cold, as warmth dribbles out of her and onto the sheets.

She props herself on an elbow. His eyes are closed and she can’t help it — her thumb smooths a wispy-blond eyebrow. A side of his mouth lifts.

“You can sleep here for a few hours, if you want to.” She tells herself it’s the whiskeys talking, the afterglow, the good time they had. “I ship out tomorrow, early.”

“Thanks.” He lets her pull the blanket from underneath him and cocoon them both inside. He mumbles, like a sleep-talker, “I’m out tomorrow afternoon on the _Kyushu_.”

Figures. She’ll probably never see him again.

She rests her head on his chest and her eyes drift closed.

***

**_USS Voyager_ , 2371 (Caretaker)**

“Tom Paris for chief conn officer?” From his seat across her ready room desk, Chakotay looks up from the padd Kathryn prepared for his perusal. “He’s a hell of a pilot, but are you sure he can handle the responsibility of overseeing flight control for the entire ship?”

“I’m sharing my plans with you in the interests of merging our two crews.” She leans back in her chair as if the too-stiff padding — typical for Starfleet furniture when it’s new — is the most comfortable she’s ever encountered. “The best person for any position will get the job. Tom is resourceful, a quick thinker, highly adaptable. You said you would ensure his safety from any Maquis who hold a grudge against him. I don’t see a problem here.”

Chakotay’s lips compress. “A man’s character is shown by his actions over time. Tom did good work today, but I’ve never known him to be anything but a mercenary and a drunk. To be frank, I don’t think he’s senior staff material.”

“This was a mistake.” Kathryn stands, frustration burning in her chest and a two-fingered point aimed squarely at Chakotay. “I’ll give your people shuttles. The Maquis can make their own way home.”

He nearly leaps to his feet. “You would do that? You would go back on the agreement we just made for the sake of one officer?”

Kathryn’s jaw flexes.

Chakotay’s eyes flick to the viewport. Sunlight catches the arc of the Ocampa homeworld.

_ Voyager’s_ engines hum. 

“Fine.” He practically spits the word. “A deal is a deal. The best person for any position gets the job. You think Tom is best for conn, and I don’t have a better idea.”

Kathryn’s nod is crisp.

But she wishes Chakotay did have a better idea. She needs people she can trust on the bridge in case the Maquis attempt some sort of rebellion. Having Tom so close, though, is not a good idea. It’s not a good idea at all.


	3. Bring Your Duffel

**San Francisco, 2367**

She wakes in the middle of the night, inner thighs sticky, and he’s still there, flat on his back. 

Something about his breathing is peaceful. 

But she has to pee. 

Tom stirs when she gets back into bed. 

“Sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“It’s okay. I should go. You said you’re shipping out early.”

“Impressive memory.”

He chuckles.

She watches him stumble through the darkness to the bathroom. 

He’s nice.

When her eyes open again, she’s alone. A grey, San Francisco sunrise lights the windows. There’s a chirping, mechanical and insistent. She crawls to her uniform crumpled on the floor and finds the oval insignia.

“Janeway here.”

An unfamiliar male voice snaps, “Report to Starfleet Command immediately. Conference room eighteen. Bring your duffel.”

Her mission briefing is early, but not this early.

“Yes, sir. I’ll be right there.”

It takes a few minutes to refresh herself and her uniform. A few more to gulp a cup of coffee. She doesn’t usually sleep this well. Her hangover headache is mild — and her body feels fantastic.

Then she’s on the sidewalk and down the street and up the stairs to Starfleet Command, duffel strap slung over her shoulder. The conference room should be easy to find.

Sixteen.

Seventeen.

Eighteen.

It’s sealed.

She’s about to tap the keypad to request entry when the door opens. She jumps back as a phalanx of security officers strides out alongside a man with his arms crossed and commander’s pips shining from his red uniform collar.

“Kathryn Janeway?” At the room’s small conference table, a grey-haired captain is wound tight as a wire. “Take a seat.”

She sits across from him. A computer terminal is angled so she can’t see the screen. The door closes and it’s just the two of them.

“Sir.”

“Let’s dispense with the pleasantries. I’m Captain Edward Jellico. What you just saw was the result of Commander Stiles deciding to talk himself out of a job. You’re already assigned to this mission and I need a first officer. Are you interested?”

There’s no air.

There’s no air.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Captain Jellico looks at her like she’s a child and he has a cookie. “In the interests of safety for all concerned, Starfleet has determined that our work is to be carried out from a cloaked shuttle. Do you have a problem with that?”

The Treaty of Algeron prohibits Federation development or use of cloaking technology. Violation of the treaty is an act of war against the Romulan Star Empire.

Her heart pounds in her ears.

“No, sir,” she says. “Not a problem.”

“Good.” The captain leans back in his seat. Kathryn’s father taught her that trick — faux comfort, an attempt to assert dominance through the pretense of nonchalance. “I also want you at your science post, so you’ll pull double duty. Go to Requisitions to get new uniforms and be back here in half an hour. I have other officers to brief.”

“Yes, sir.” She bites back appreciation. This captain doesn’t seem like the type to want thanks for giving her a chance at command.

But she floats to Requisitions and grins when the officer issues her command uniforms. She changes and gives herself a toothy grin in the mirror.

“Why, I do believe red is your color,” she purrs at her reflection.

When she returns to the conference room, her commanding officer is scowling. “We’ve lost another one.”

“Sir?”

“Another officer for our mission. Damn treaty purists. We need a pilot. Any ideas, Commander?”

She’s used to being called Commander. It’s a mouthful to say Lieutenant Commander, so most people shorten to Commander. 

But the rank has never felt so wonderfully _commanding_ as it does now. 

“There must be officers between missions. Perhaps we can have someone reassigned?”

“Good thinking.” Jellico taps at his computer. “Three starships are set to depart today: the _Odyssey_ , the _Nash_ , and the _Kyushu_.”

“The _Kyushu_?” Muscle memory relaxes her belly, but her echo of Captain Jellico’s words spring him into action. 

“Three new pilots are set to rotate onto that ship, a lieutenant commander and two ensigns.” Jellico studies his screen. “Huh. One of them is Owen Paris’ son. Kid is a year and a half out of the academy and has served on three starships. All good personnel reviews. He’s got to be bucking for a promotion. An officer like that is our best bet — young, eager to climb the ranks, wanting to prove himself beyond his family name.”

Her chest tightens at the similarities to her own situation. Could Captain Jellico have known her father? Is her readiness for promotion why he dangled this chance at command instead of finding an experienced first officer?

Jellico slaps his commbadge. “Jellico to Tom Paris.”

Tom. Now that’s a funny coincidence. The guy from last night —

“Paris here.”

No.

“Report to Starfleet Command immediately. Conference room eighteen. Bring your duffel.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be right there.”

No, no, no, no, no. 

It could be different men with identical voices. 

And names.

And, now that she thinks about Admiral Paris’ stories about his son, approximate ages.

Shit.

How the fuck was she supposed to know Tom-from-Fleeting was Tom-from-Admiral-Paris? She’s served with Fleeting partners before, but never commanded one.

Of course she hasn’t — the ban on command personnel is absolute. Too many officers couldn’t separate a night of fun from duty and they ruined it for everyone.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Jellico is tapping his computer, muttering about cabin assignments and the duty roster.

“Sir?”

“We’ll be in a heavily modified Class 2 shuttle. Three bunks per cabin except for me — rank has its privileges. You’re on double duty so what was an XO, science, and pilot cabin is now just you and the pilot. We’ve got medical, engineering, and weapons officers in the other cabin, so …”

The captain keeps talking and, on his instruction, she moves to his side of the conference table to look at his computer screen.

She needs to focus, to impress him.

“Perhaps, sir, if officers serve a staggered four-shift rotation instead of a standard three-shift rotation, each cabin could maintain regulation privacy protocols despite the different number of assigned personnel.”

Jellico double-checks her math. “Good thinking. Your first job will be to create those duty rosters, then familiarize yourself with the science side of your responsibilities. I’ll need you to —”

The door chimes.

“Yes,” Jellico calls.

The door opens.

Wispy eyebrows, one smooth and the other unkempt.

Broad chest crossed by a duffel bag strap.

The red-uniformed ensign’s face is placid, as if he hadn’t slept half the night in her bed.

“Ensign Tom Paris, reporting as ordered, sir.”

There’s the question about the treaty and an answer affirming willingness to serve the mission. Jellico taps his computer, then informs Tom of a change in assignment from the _Kyushu_ to the _Mata Hari_.

“ _Mata Hari_ , sir?” Blond eyebrows lift.

“That’s our shuttle. Stealth vessel. Should be fun to fly. Go ahead and report onboard. Commander, go with him. Transporter room four has our coordinates.”

“Yes, sir.”

The conference room door closes behind them. They walk toward the lift, identical duffel bags hanging from their shoulders.

“I suppose I should be flattered.” Tom nods to security officers walking in the other direction. “Recruited from a starship assignment to a shuttle by a woman whose uniform changes color from night to day.”

“No.” Kathryn fights the urge to cross her arms. “My duties were reassigned, like yours just were. I was issued new uniforms this morning. The captain chose you. I didn’t.”

He laughs, smooth with a twist of bitter. “Sure, Kath. Whatever you say.”

The lift arrives. They enter, face forward, and she calls out the floor for the transporter rooms.

There’s a mechanical whir as the lift rises.

“Look, Tom,” she turns toward him, “we’re going to be roommates and I want you to trust me when I tell you that I would never —”

Blue eyes fix on hers and it’s like she’s naked again. He steps back, just like the night before.

The lift doors open.

“Fine.” He doesn’t look at her as they walk to the transporter room. “I trust you.”

***

**_USS Voyager_ , 2372 (a few months before Investigations)**

“You would be expected to pose as a malcontent in an attempt to flush out the traitor onboard. Only the captain and I would be aware of your true objective. This is a voluntary assignment, Mr. Paris. Please do not accept if you are uncomfortable or unwilling.”

From behind her ready room desk, Kathryn’s eyes shift from Tuvok to Tom.

He’s made friends onboard, become part of a community that sees him for who he is, not the mistakes he made.

He would be crazy to give that up.

A hand rakes blond hair. “If I don’t accept the assignment, what would happen?”

Tuvok outlines various scenarios, none of them good. 

“Tom.” She tries to sound commanding yet concerned, not the other way around. “You don’t have to do this.”

She usually looks at his cheek or his forehead. There are times she gives orders to his nose and he replies to her chin. Every so often, their eyes meet and that’s never good. 

It’s not good right now.

It’s very, very not good.

Oh God, if Tom agrees to this mission, if something happens to him — 

“I’ll do it.”

“Very well.” Tuvok holds up a padd. “I took the liberty of accessing your unabridged service record. There is a two-month period just before your promotion to lieutenant that is classified. Am I to understand you have previously engaged in clandestine work?”

“You could say that.”

Nothing changes on the outside. On the inside, she’s sure Tom’s heart is hammering.

Because hers sure as hell is.

“Mr. Tuvok, I didn’t authorize access to Mr. Paris’ unabridged service record.”

Tuvok faces her. “You did not, Captain. Nor did you previously disclose a two-month, classified period in your own service record at the same time as Mr. Paris’. Since he has agreed to our arrangement onboard _Voyager_ , I must ask — have the two of you served together in the past, possibly during the two months previously mentioned?”

Please let there be a red alert right now.

Please.

Kathryn keeps focus on Tuvok, not even glancing at Tom. 

“I assure you, Mr. Tuvok, I introduced myself to Tom Paris in Auckland, seventeen months ago.”

A dark, diagonal eyebrow rises. Tuvok turns to Tom. 

“I ask you, Mr. Paris, with the knowledge that the safety of this ship and all aboard could rely on your ability to convince the crew that you lack allegiance to their commanding officer — for how long have you known Kathryn Janeway?”

“Kathryn?” The two syllables roll unnaturally off Tom’s tongue. “Like the lady said, she introduced herself in Auckland and that’s the first time I ever met Captain Janeway.”

Tuvok nods crisply.

But Kathryn is 70,000 light years away in a cloaked shuttle, in short-term housing, on a starbase, and in the runabout where it all went to hell.


	4. You’re the One

**_USS Mata Hari_ , 2367**

They materialize in a cabin with an entry door to their backs. There are two bunks to starboard, a bathroom door to stern, and, to port, a third bunk with a dresser and replicator underneath. 

“Do you want top bunk?” He’s gallant, a bit formal.

“Yes.” She tosses her duffel onto the bed to starboard.

His duffel arcs and lands on the bed under hers.

“Let’s take a minute to get to know each other as crewmates, huh?” She sticks out her hand. “I’m Lieutenant Commander Kathryn Janeway, and I served with your father on the _Al-Batani_.”

His eyes narrow.

Her hand becomes clammy.

“I believed you when you said you didn’t change my duty assignment even though first officers advise on personnel matters. I believed you when you said you weren’t a command officer last night, even though you are this morning. But if you want to tell a bald-faced lie, then you aren’t the person I thought you were.”

She speaks through a dry throat. “I served with your father on the _Icarus_.”

Her service record says the _Al-Batani_.

But Starfleet Medical needed a ship name to log her injuries without breaking mission confidentiality. 

She’s never stepped foot on the _Al-Batani_.

But if Tom knows his father didn’t command the _Al-Batani_ and she just said the _Icarus_ , then Tom might figure out —

“You’re …” his forehead furrows, “you’re the one — the one who was captured with him, aren’t you?”

Captured with Admiral Paris near Urtea II, a world claimed by both the Federation and the Cardassian Union. Kicked by Cardassian boots and punched by Cardassian fists until she was half blind. Left for dead in a cage, her body heat bleeding into the cold ground. 

The contours of Tom’s face blur. 

“I am not going to discuss that.”

The comm system crackles. “All hands, this is Captain Jellico. Take your stations.”

She stumbles toward the door. Cabins in this shuttle configuration open directly to the control center and she needs to get to her post. 

“Stop.” Tom’s hands catch her shoulders. He turns her to face him and she blinks at his chin. “Don’t go out there like this. You’re the first officer. I’m a shitty ensign who shouldn’t have said what I said when you were trying to be professional. Your crew can wait until you’re ready, Commander.”

A breath shudders in her chest.

Another breath, a little smoother.

Another — smoother still.

She looks up at him. It’s the naked feeling again, but this time it’s good. Comfortable.

“Thanks.”

He nods.

They stride out of the cabin together. 

“Finally.” Jellico swivels from his command chair. 

There are officers at stations for weapons, engineering, and medical. Kathryn takes her place at science near the cabins and Tom sits at the helm under the front viewport. The familiar curve of Mars means they must be near Utopia Planitia. 

“Take us out, Ensign,” Jellico orders. “The cloak will remain engaged for most of our mission. Once we get some distance from Earth, we all can relax.”

“Heading, sir?”

Jellico enters information into his command computer. “I’m sending coordinates.”

Tom taps and the stars shift. There’s quiet until they clear the solar system, then Jellico orders warp eight.

“All right,” the captain stands and addresses his crew, “let’s get a few things straight. Now that we’re out here, I’m not one to get hung up on rank except my own. First names are fine. Our mission is to destroy a small moon. We’ve got the firepower, but we’ll be in hostile territory. We get in, we blow up the moon, we get out. Radio silence except for internal comms. Any questions?”

Kathryn’s console lights up. A text-only message from Tom. _Don’t ask where we’re going._

She wasn’t planning to. Her finger jabs to delete his comm but it disappears before she gets the chance.

That’s a neat trick.

“Very good.” Jellico seems pleased there are no questions. “Now, who has some stories? I can’t stand a quiet shuttle.”

There’s talk of academy bar fights and postings on far-flung planets. Kathryn tries to laugh at the appropriate places, but she’s focused on the duty rosters. She sets a rotating night shift and tells herself that cabin privacy protocols are the reason her hours in command will so rarely coincide with Tom’s overnight time at the helm.

“Rosters look good, Kathryn.”

She jumps a little in her seat, both at Captain Jellico suddenly at her shoulder and his use of her first name instead of her rank.

“Thank you, sir.”

“You know, an old space salt like me can really only unwind out here.” He motions toward the star-streaked viewports. “Planet-side, I’m as tense as a Pyrithian bat.”

Why is he telling her this?

“Kathryn,” his voice drops, “take part in the goddamn conversation. You’re going to spend the next two months of your life in this shuttle. An eye on the work and an eye on the crew — that’s how a good first officer does the job.”

“Yes, sir.” Fuck. “Thank you, sir.”

Tom is telling a story. Something about a biochemistry class at the academy and how he misunderstood when the professor said to lick the results of a glucose-to-fructose experiment.

“Talk about eating your grade,” he says, his back to his appreciative audience. “I ended up having to stay after class with Professor Wong reminding me every two minutes, ‘It’s “taste,” the fructose, Cadet, not “eat” the fructose.’”

There’s laughter.

Is Tom laughing, too? It’s hard to tell.

“I can’t be the only one who made a ‘sweet’ mistake or two at the academy!” he mock protests.

More stories follow, and Kathryn joins in. The little shuttle and brand-new crew begin to feel homey in a way she hasn’t experienced on other ships. Even Captain Jellico tells a few tales, mentioning a wife back home and baby on the way.

“Boy or girl?” Tom swivels from the helm for the first time.

“Boy.” The captain motions for Tom to face forward. “Due in five months. Here’s hoping he’ll be a chip off the old Starfleet block.”

For a second, Tom’s hands still. Then he returns to minor course adjustments.

Kathryn checks her own console. Her science orders call for her to scan every habitable moon and planet, as well as chart stellar and spatial phenomena. It’s time-consuming work, not thought-provoking.

But as the shuttle flies in as close to a straight line as possible and familiar star-systems recede, it becomes fairly easy to extrapolate the _Mata Hari’s_ probable course. 

They’re headed for Cardassian space.

***

**_USS Voyager_ , 2373 (after Displaced)**

“So, what do you think?” Chakotay leans forward in his chair.

Kathryn thinks she hates meeting in Chakotay’s office for crew evaluations. She thinks she hates sitting on the wrong side of a desk, and she thinks she hates that so many crewmembers are worthy of promotion that, if she promoted them all, she wouldn’t have any ensigns or lieutenants left.

“I think it was just a few years ago that you didn’t want Tom Paris to be a member of _Voyager’s_ senior staff. I think a change in rank for any member of the bridge crew is dangerous and ill-advised given the need to maintain command hierarchy so far from home. I think this proposal to promote Tom to lieutenant commander with increased responsibilities for crew community-building and morale is unnecessary given holo-programming is his hobby, and making holo-environments a duty could remove the fun from places like Sandrine’s and the beach resort, which would actually be to the detriment of the crew.”

Chakotay’s forehead creases. “If I recall correctly, what I said all those years ago was that a man’s character is shown by his actions over time. Tom has proven himself — and you and I usually argue the opposite sides when it comes to Paris. I would have expected you to want to promote him, not me.”

“I apologize for not living up to your expectations then, Commander.” Her arms fold.

But Chakotay doesn’t fall for her bluster the way he used to.

“What’s this really about, Kathryn?”

It’s about potential rank changes shifting Tom ahead of Tuvok to be her XO if anything happened to Chakotay, and the dangers that would entail given that Tom can tell when she knows what she’s doing and when she’s bullshitting.

It’s about her knowledge that friendships are more important to Tom than rank, but Harry might become uncomfortable if his best buddy were two ranks above him.

It’s about crew-wide responsibilities putting Tom in a command position over most everyone, including B’Elanna, destroying Tom’s chances for shipboard romance, which is confusing, actually, because not counting a few rather slimy errors in judgment brought on by their warp 10 experience, he hasn’t had as many opportunities as she would have thought.

“It’s about fairness, Chakotay. By years of service, Tuvok is next in line for promotion and, while I don’t think any promotions are necessary, he’s due. That’s the only rank change I’ll consider for a member of the bridge crew. Understood?”

Chakotay nods and the proposal to promote Tom that lists assistance in engineering, security, and sickbay, that praises personal restraint in the gallicite caves, historical analysis on 20th century Earth, and rescue of the crew from exile on Hanon IV, that notes superior piloting and dedication to crew well-being via programming and sharing open holo-environments — it all disappears with the tap of a button, as if it never existed. 

The goddamn, fucking irony.


	5. Then You Know Why I Can’t Sleep

**_USS Mata Hari_ , 2367**

The engineer is backup conn officer and once Tom is off shift, it becomes clear that the shuttle’s course through lesser-traveled regions is more of a piloting challenge than it appeared.

“Try to keep us stable,” Kathryn orders, fingernails gripping her chair. “We don’t want to rattle our slumbering friends out of their bunks.”

Without Tom in the command center, she struggles to lead conversation, a challenge more formidable with half the crew on rest rotation.

When her part of the night shift is finally over, she would run to her cabin if her legs weren’t rubbery from the rough ride.

It’s dark. She tiptoes in the general direction of the bathroom. 

“If you want to turn on some lights,” comes a gravelly voice from Tom’s bunk, “go ahead.”

“Thanks. Why aren’t you asleep?”

There’s a rustling of bedclothes. “No reason.”

“Computer, one-quarter lights.” 

The room brightens and she grabs her duffel from the top bunk. May as well unpack so she won’t be pressed for time in the morning. She opens drawers and tosses in uniforms, underthings, a few personal items. 

“I thought we weren’t going to lie to each other, Tom.”

His breathing is steady, as if she hadn’t just leveled a personal accusation. Maybe he needs more detail?

“I extrapolated our course.”

“Then you know why I can’t sleep.”

She fishes out a night shirt and shorts — standard issue. Her thumb misses the keypad to close the drawers, so she tries again.

And again.

“Kath, are you all right?”

She’s numb, pushing away images of her father and fiancé, both killed testing a prototype starship designed to counter Cardassian attacks; images of Cardassians sneering as they shoved her, bleeding, into a cage atop frozen ground; images of comrades killed or injured as they fought by her side in trench warfare against Cardassians. She had figured bad things came in threes. But maybe that’s not true. Maybe Cardassians will keep appearing in her life until they finally kill her, too. Maybe —

“I need to know what you want, Kath. Do you want a friend right now or a subordinate?”

She wants to take a shower, to wash off … everything. 

Memories. 

Fears. 

Ghosts. 

“I’ll be back in a few minutes. I understand if you fall asleep.” She needs hot water, as hot as possible, and she needs the fresh, clean smell of soap and she needs bubbles. Soap bubbles have rainbows. Rainbows mean the sun is shining. If the sun is shining, there’s no storm, no gathering of clouds or Cardassians, no loss or pain.

The shower is sonic only. 

Son of a bitch. 

At least she can wash her face with water. 

Her big-eyed, pale reflection looks like a scared child. 

Is that what she is — scared?

Maybe. 

Well that’s ridiculous. No point to that. 

Clean and in her nightclothes, she steps into a still-quarter-lit room. Tom opens his arms and she tells herself that she’s too tired to climb up to the top bunk, that there’s nothing wrong with sharing a bunk, that his warmth doesn’t comfort her and his chin tucked into her shoulder, knees nestled in the backs of her own, aren’t kindnesses beyond what she deserves. 

“You don’t give a guy a lot to go on,” he murmurs.

Her head shakes. “I suppose not.”

“Lucky for you,” his arms tighten around her, “I can fly through interference.”

She rolls and looks into his eyes. “You feel it, too, don’t you? The connection between us?”

His erection grows against her thigh. “Yeah.”

“Computer, reduce illumination to zero.” She rolls again and his erection presses against her rear end. “We can’t fool around when I’m your commanding officer.”

His arm hugs her ribcage. “Yes, ma’am.”

She chuckles and, despite everything, his breathing lulls her to sleep. 

She sleeps in his bunk again the next night.

And the night after that.

And when he’s on duty and she has to fall asleep by herself, she tosses and turns in her top bunk until she finally climbs down to his bunk and waits for him.

They talk.

Really talk.

“I’m good at flying. I know that. But part of me resents it because piloting is what my dad wanted for me and that messes it all up. Do you know what I mean?”

“His name was Justin and he was a lot like how you describe Susie Crabtree — cold at first, but then nice. Really nice. But I have more and more trouble remembering his face. Is that strange?”

“If you make people laugh, then they’re not mad at you, right? People can’t yell when they’re laughing. I … I hate it when people yell.”

He doesn’t bring up the Cardassians again, not even after the _Mata Hari_ leaves Federation space and Kathryn drifts toward sleep with eyelids lit by light-echoes of yet another scan of systems new to the Starfleet database.

But, one night, after weeks in Cardassian territory, even his familiar breathing can’t loosen the knot of fear in her chest.

“If I die, tell my mother to get rid of all my things, okay? Tell her that’s what I wanted.”

His arms tighten around her, chest and stomach pressed to her back. “You’re not going to die.”

“You don’t know that.”

Hands drop to her hips, turn her to face him even though the cabin is dark. “You got away from them the last time. You fought in the war. You’re a survivor, Kath.”

Her forehead pounds. “Sometimes the alternative is more appealing.”

The warp core pulses, speeding them closer to danger. 

“Tell me why.” He kisses her forehead, always seeming to know exactly where the ache forms. 

And she tells him about the snow, how she decided, after her father and Justin died, to lose herself in the blizzard, to let the cold outside match the cold inside. But there was the lost dog, the dog her sister ended up taking care of, and she couldn’t let the dog die in the snow and then Mark —

“Who’s Mark?”

“A good person that I couldn’t love because we don’t see things the same way.”

She wants Tom to say something sexy like, “he lost out on one hell of a woman,” or to slide warm fingers between her thighs and murmur, “I know what I want,” and she would tell him yet again that she knows she’s being uptight about command protocol, she knows she’s drawn this very blurry line for him, and she knows sharing a bed is more intimate, in some ways, than sex.

But, instead, he mutters, “Yeah, I know that feeling.”

She draws in breath to ask why when the comm crackles.

“All hands, this is Captain Jellico. Battlestations.”

***

**_USS Voyager_ , 2373 (Worst Case Scenario)**

In a simulated transporter room, Kathryn strides toward the holographic version of herself. “I’m ready to help you retake the ship from the Maquis, but first you need to answer one question: Why do you trust Tom Paris?”

From a transporter pad, her own nose crinkles back at her. “Why not? I served with his father on the _Al-Batani_ — and Tom is standing by for transport but you said you could only bring one of us aboard at a time.”

“I’m waiting for the next break in the shield modulation.” Kathryn motions toward the transporter console. “In the meantime, what about Harry Kim? Wouldn’t it make more sense to expect unflagging loyalty from an officer just out of the academy?”

“Harry Kim?” The hologram chortles as it steps down from the transporter pad and stands in front of Kathryn. “Now why would Harry Kim pilot my shuttle on an away mission?”

“It’s the piloting then?” Kathryn’s hands begin to hitch on her hips, but she stops when the hologram’s movements mirror her own. “The trust is because Tom just happened to be your pilot when the Maquis rebelled?”

The hologram seems to think, lips pursed, index finger tapping a hip.

“No,” it finally declares. “There’s something else. But a connection between two humans is not always logical.”

Tuvok’s writerly seams are showing.

Kathryn’s arms fold. “Well, if you want my help, logical or not, you need to tell me what that ‘something else’ is.”

“I’m the captain of this ship and I give the orders.” The hologram’s jaw sets. “I’ll do this without you if I have to.”

Fuck.

“Chakotay reset all your access codes when he took over _Voyager_. I want to get you to the secondary command processors, but it’s not going to be an easy trip.” Kathryn cocks her head toward dangers the hologram could expect outside the transporter room. “If you’re going to get your ship back, we have to trust each other, trust each other’s people — and that trust needs to begin here. You said there’s ‘something else’ between you and Tom Paris. Why not just be honest about what it is?”

The hologram’s bottom lip disappears behind teeth.

It looks to the ceiling, then the floor.

Its chest rises and falls.

“Because the needs of the many,” it says, human-like in pain as it delivers the Vulcan proverb, “outweigh the needs of the few or the one.”

Kathryn inhales sharply. “Computer, end program.”

How the fuck did Tuvok figure that out?

She needs to be more careful.


	6. Those Aren’t Our Orders

**_USS Mata Hari_ , 2367**

They’re uniformed and in the command center within seconds of Jellico’s call to battlestations. 

Three Cardassian ships fill the front viewport. 

“We’re still cloaked, but this welcoming committee can’t be here by accident.” Jellico swivels toward Kathryn. “Run a long-range scan. There’s a moon about ten light years along our present course that orbits the third planet around a binary star. That’s our strike target. We’re not in weapons range yet, but figure out if there’s anything in our way if we try a warp jump to get there faster.”

She’s already begun the scan. “Yes, sir.”

Jellico turns to face other officers. “Standby engineering and weapons in case we can make that jump. Helm, cut our power to minimum and try to use thrusters only to get past those ships. Even if they can detect us, maybe we can fool their sensors into thinking we’re background noise.”

Tom’s hands dart across his console. “Yes, sir.”

The lights dim.

Kathryn double-checks her calculations. “Sir, there’s too much interference on long-range sensors to scan the area. But there’s solar flare activity less than a light year away. The Cardassian sun is K-class, so Cardassian ships aren’t designed to take much heat. If they pursue, we could use the flare to our advantage.”

“Nice thinking, Kathryn.” Jellico flashes the first smile she’s seen from him.

She wishes she could smile back.

“Cardassian ships are scanning the area, but aren’t locking onto us.” The weapons officer’s eyes don’t lift from the tactical console.

The _Mata Hari_ slides under the belly of the lead Cardassian ship.

“Once we’re out of scanning range, Tom, I want you to punch it up to warp 9.5.” Jellico taps his command computer. “We’ll blow up the moon and race home. If the Cardassians have gotten wind of what we’re doing, there’s no sense in taking chances.”

Cardassian ships aren’t visible through the viewports anymore. 

Constellations shift slowly.

Slowly.

Slowly.

“We’re out of the Cardassian ships’ scanning range,” the weapons officer announces. 

“Go,” Jellico orders.

Tom’s hands race across his console and star-streaks fill the viewports.

Spatial phenomena whip by so fast that Kathryn can’t catalog them. “Sir?”

“Hold on, Kathryn.” The captain’s jaw is clenched. “You’ll have something to do in a minute.”

Her scans begin to display information about the moon, including high concentrations of beritium, dolamide, kelindide, rhodinium, and uridium — all materials Cardassians use to build ships and military equipment.

There are also more than a half billion life signs, including children.

“Captain,” Kathryn looks up from her readings, “if my scans are correct, there are civilians on this installation.”

“There’s no such thing as a Cardassian civilian,” Jellico snaps. “Cardassians are pack animals, predators who oppress and kill other species. The pack on this moon is dangerous and needs to be culled.”

But a scientist knows that never having seen a Cardassian civilian doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

A scientist knows that her own fear is temporary, while the termination of life is, in most cases, permanent.

And a scientist … and Starfleet first officer … knows that dehumanizing an entire species should have no place in decision-making. 

“But there is such a thing, sir, as the Cardassian-Federation Armistice that gives Cardassians the right, in their regions of space, to conduct their society the way they see fit.” Kathryn’s chest burns. “And no Starfleet officer should obey an order to massacre innocent people.”

Her suggestion of mutiny ripples through the crew. 

Jellico’s jaw sets.

“Morals aren’t situational, Kathryn. You either follow treaties and directives or you don’t. Our cloaked presence — an act of war you agreed to commit — proves there’s more at stake here than you know.”

“How about telling us, then?” Tom’s tone is light. “We’ve all been flying pretty blind, even though we’ve followed every one of your orders.”

“I’m a weapons specialist,” hands lower from a console to a lap, “not a mass murderer.”

The medical officer cites the Hippocratic Oath and the engineer’s arms fold.

Jellico rockets out of his chair. He paces the small shuttle. 

“I don’t have time for this. You don’t have time for this. Starfleet Intelligence has identified that moon as the site of a massive mining and manufacturing operation. Weapons and ship components produced there are disguised as scientific equipment, then taken to a strategic site in the Cuellar System, a jumping-off point into three Federation sectors. We blow up the moon now, and every Federation citizen sleeps a little more soundly in their beds tonight.”

“I won’t.” The star-streaks become pinpoints and Tom turns from the helm. “I won’t sleep soundly knowing we killed innocent people.”

Other officers murmur agreement. Kathryn resists the instinct to clamp her hands over her ears to drown out Admiral Paris screaming from torture, her sister eulogizing their father, Justin’s mother weeping — all because of Cardassians. 

She won’t murder children.

But a first officer’s job is to offer their captains alternatives.

“Uridium,” she says, and heads turn toward her. “In its raw form, uridium will explode if exposed to an electrical charge. What if we ignite the uridium to destroy the weapons and shipbuilding operations, leaving civilian areas untouched?”

“Those aren’t our orders,” a vein in Jellico’s neck throbs, “and this shuttle isn’t a democracy.”

“I gotta side with our XO on this one.” Tom speaks as if he’s discussing the weather, not disobeying a direct order.

“Agreed.”

“Agreed.”

“Agreed.”

Five officers survey one captain.

Jellico’s fingers clench into a fist, tight and white-knuckled, then slowly unclench. He exhales through gritted teeth.

“Our mission is to protect the Federation from the threat posed by operations on that moon. If we accomplish that, we’ve done our jobs.” Jellico strides back to his captain’s chair. “Ready phasers to emit an electrical pulse.”

Tom turns back to the conn and stars shift as the shuttle enters standard orbit around the moon.

The weapons officer’s hands are a blur on a console. “Phasers set. Targeting military installations. Awaiting dropped cloak to be able to engage weapons.”

Kathryn forces her breathing to remain level.

Did the captain think things through and agree to her plan … or did he give in for fear of an officer revolt?

“Decloaking.” Jellico jabs at his command computer. “Fire.”

From her station, Kathryn watches the energy beams as they strike Cardassian structures containing uridium. Life signs scatter in what appear to be evacuations as the uridium becomes increasingly unstable, then reaches critical levels.

Defense ships rise from the moon, and Jellico orders evasive maneuvers. Cardassian disruptor beams slice past the viewports, but there’s no impact. On Kathryn’s console, the shuttle’s movement registers — vector three-two-zero, starboard; thruster half; vector two-eight-zero, port — and that’s … that’s what Tom muttered when they were Fleeting! Evasive maneuvers! She should have known then that he was a pilot. She should have known then that he would be thoughtful and —

Explosions on the moon are massive.

Hundreds of life signs vanish and, despite saving more people than they’ve killed, despite tough calls being part of the command position she wanted so badly, despite doubting that Cardassian soldiers would have shown Federation civilians the mercy this crew showed so many Cardassians … there’s an ache in Kathryn’s throat.

“Our cloak is back up. I want warp 9.5, now, before those defense ships can catch us. We’re going to push the engines and I want them monitored at all times. I also want a full tactical and medical analysis of the effectiveness of that energy pulse.” Jellico points at officers as he gives orders. “Kathryn, I’ll talk to you in my quarters.”

She rises on unsteady legs.

The captain’s cabin is tiny, just a single bunk, sheets pulled regulation tight, above a dresser and replicator.

He stands in front of her.

“If I had a ready room, we would be talking there. If I had a brig, security would be on alert to escort you to your cell. I want to know what the hell you have to say for yourself.”

“I believed our responsibility to protect innocent life could co-exist with the mandates of our mission, sir.” She keeps her back straight, shoulders square, chin up. “Preliminary evidence suggests that I was correct.”

“Preliminary evidence _suggests_ that you forgot why we’re out here.” The vein in Jellico’s neck throbs again. “The safety of the Federation is our primary concern. You compromised that by inciting your crewmates to mutiny against their captain, against our orders. I’ve learned a lesson, and that’s to keep officers toeing a tighter line. I want to know what the hell you’ve learned — and if you say ‘nothing,’ then I _will_ reconfigure forcefields into a makeshift brig.”

She blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “I’ve learned exactly what you said, sir. ‘An eye on the work and an eye on the crew.’ We fulfilled our mission and, regardless of our personal feelings about Cardassians, we killed as few innocent people as possible. We retained our humanity, sir.”

Jellico looks at her for a long minute, his expression unreadable.

“Get out,” he says. “You’re relieved of duty and confined to your cabin for the duration of this mission. I’m holding you completely responsible for what happened today, and every detail of your ill-advised, misguided actions will be in my report to headquarters.”

She hurries to her cabin, strips off her uniform, and sits on the cold tile floor of the sonic shower, knees to her chest.

Her career could be over.

But she can hear her father’s voice. _Command is about making the tough calls, Goldenbird, and you made one. Don’t worry. The Starfleet brass is sure to appreciate what you accomplished today._

She wasn’t alone, though. Tom helped her. The other officers followed her. If she gets through this, she can lead other crews. She’s sure she can. 

She’s sure she _will_.

Then Tom is in the doorway, light catching his blond hair, and it occurs to her that a pilot is like a bird, and this one is golden, a kind man who is on her side. He doesn’t rush her, he pushes just enough to get her to open up, and he understands the demands of her job in a way Mark never could.

And like a knife to her sternum, she knows.

She loves him.

***

**_USS Voyager_ , 2374 (after Scientific Method)**

“I’m removing the last of the alien devices from your head. With the genetic tags already disabled, your recovery should be swift from here.”

Kathryn tries to relax on the thin mattress of the biobed. It’s just her and the EMH in sickbay, and she stares at the ceiling as he fusses over her, manipulating objects she can’t see.

There’s the hiss of a hypospray and a rush of … something … in her brain. 

“Doctor?” Her voice pitches high. 

“You may be feeling a release of serotonin to counter the increased dopamine levels you were experiencing. The serotonin isn’t in your brain, per se, but its effects may lead to feelings of cheerfulness, calm, and overall emotional stability.”

A warning would have been nice.

It’s like little explosions … as if her brain is rewiring. 

“Captain, I also must tell you now that you’re feeling better — as part of the complex genetic analysis I performed to counter effects of the alien experiments, I’ve identified four members of the crew whose RNA is slightly … askew … for lack of a better term.”

She can barely hear him over the fireworks in her mind. “Explain.”

“I’ve attributed the phenomenon to a phase shift for two of my patients — Ensign Kim and Naomi Wildman. This makes sense as they transitioned from a divergent reality a year and a half ago. But the other two people onboard with similar RNA quantum drift are yourself and Mr. Paris. Tell me, Captain —”

Fireworks have given way bombs, booming, rattling her from the inside, so loud she can barely think.

“Computer, override EMH control over his activation sequence and deactivate EMH.”

There’s an agape mouth, a temporary shift out of existence, and the Doctor’s medical tricorder falls to the floor.

“Janeway to Paris. Report to sickbay. Now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

It takes him a few minutes? Maybe?

He scoops up the medical tricorder. “Computer, seal sickbay doors.” 

“Tom, the Doctor found — he found …”

He shushes her. “Let me stabilize your serotonin levels first. The Doc could have eased you into this instead of forcing your neurotransmitters to try to compensate all at once. You can tell me why you deactivated him in a minute. Right now, breathe.”

The bombs in her brain.

So loud.

She can’t —

A hypospray is cold on her neck.

“I’m giving you two ccs of cortisol. It should help your body balance out the serotonin and dopamine.”

The bombs recede.

“Good.” His eyes flick back and forth from the medical tricorder to her face. “You’re prone to low serotonin, so you probably handled the alien experimentation better than someone with more typical levels, but you needed a gentler return to your normal.”

The fireworks slow and become quieter.

“Thank you.”

And it’s been so many years, but his hand knows the exact spot where the ache forms in her forehead.

Her exhale is shaky. “Tom, the Doctor found quantum drift in your RNA and in mine. The runabout — I never thought about it, but it’s a feasible explanation.”

Their eyes meet.

He looks away.

“Tom, you know I —”

“Give me your security clearance. I’ll change our quantum analyses to look normal, and we can erase the Doc’s memory.” His arms fold. “I assume that’s why you called me here.”

A last, weak firework flashes in her brain, a flicker of light and a sound of sorrow.

Then she calls out her access code and, together, they get to work.


	7. I Like You, Too

_**USS Mata Hari**_ **, 2367**

She tells Tom that she’s relieved of duty.

His forehead furrows. “Are you going to be all right?” 

She stands, turns off the sonic shower, and her fingers find the zipper on his uniform. “I think I can find certain short-term benefits to my lack of shipboard responsibilities.”

He grins, all wispy eyebrows and a devilish glint that proves they both can shift quickly from work to play.

But his head shakes. 

“I have to get back to the helm. Jellico is mad as a Capellan power-cat left out in the rain, but I told him that I needed a bathroom break. Wanted to check on you.”

Lips press to her forehead, then he’s gone.

He’s a good man.

She’s not sure how many hours later he wakes her up by sliding into bed next to her. His hand grasps her rear end and holds on tight. “How quiet can you be?”

Her lips curl upwards. Everyone knows bulkheads are far from soundproof.

“Very, very quiet.”

His chuckle is low, dangerous. “Let’s see what we can do.”

The hunger that’s been low in her belly for all these weeks blossoms into want, into _need_ , and she reaches for the waistband of his sleep shorts, but her fingers find belly hair instead. She follows the trail to his erection, and a whisper of a giggle escapes. “You were confident this would happen tonight, weren’t you?”

“I thought I had a pretty good read on the situation.”

He pushes down her sleep shorts and she pulls her night shirt over her head, fabric arcing as she tosses it to the foot of the narrow bed.

There’s touching, touching she’s wanted so badly, his fingers between her legs and his erection in her hand. They’re slow, no rush, curious swirls of a thumb here, curled fingers there. She’s in the tiny bunk, yes, but she’s also soaring, his attentions sending her flying, and she can’t stop her tongue sliding on his, can’t stop quivering, can’t stop small sounds, little gasps and murmurs that make his breathing go ragged.

She’s on top of him, thighs tight around his waist, nipple between his lips and he bites just enough that she would cry out if she could, but she can’t, and his fingers slide over her mouth, into her mouth, and she tastes herself.

“Kath.” His whisper is strained, and she understands.

She inches down his chest, teasing them both for a few precious seconds, skin skimming on skin, and she trembles with her need for him, with the tightness between her legs and the surety that she’s with a partner who cares about her. 

Then, with a hand on his erection, she eases him inside her. 

Holy shit.

She —

She’s going to —

He holds onto her rear end and puffs of air escape through her nose and she sucks on his fingers because if she starts shouting she’ll never stop and, oh, the mattress is getting loud, isn’t it?

And he thrusts into her, coarse hair tickling exactly where she wants it to, and she thrusts right back and the tightness between her legs is so good, so good, so good, and her thighs are shaking and she needs this mattress to quiet down and she’s starting to see spots and —

And —

And she’s weightless.

Floating.

Gone.

He shudders under her, the force of his orgasm rocking both their bodies, and she could float forever in this hazy wonderland of trembling limbs and sweaty skin and bliss in her belly.

Warm lips press to her forehead. “I like you, too.”

“What?” Did she miss something?

Arms encircle her. “Don’t worry about it.”

She wants to understand.

But she also wants to stay dreamy, dizzy, a little dazed.

“Okay.”

They breathe.

His erection softens and falls out. 

She stumbles to the bathroom, fluid dripping down her legs.

Then he goes, returning with a couple of hand towels to lay over damp sheets.

They hold each other, blanket pulled to their shoulders.

“You said, ‘I like you,’ back in San Francisco.” His eyes are scrunched shut. “Why did you say that when you didn’t know me yet?”

Her thumb smooths a wispy eyebrow. His eyes open. “I knew you, Tom. I knew you the minute you looked at me from that lift. And I knew that you knew me, too.”

His smile is soft, hopeful. Then his jaw sets. “Did you know that I faked being tired so I could sleep next to you that first night?”

“No.” Her chuckle is light as she smooths his other eyebrow. “But, in retrospect, I’m not surprised. You’re a quick thinker.”

He turns her, tucks his knees into the backs of hers, drapes an arm around her waist. “Growing up, the only time my dad said, ‘I love you,’ was when he was angry at me. ‘I love you, son, but stop looking at the ocean and start looking at the stars.’ ‘I love you, son, but you need to practice your piloting drills if you want to get into the academy.’ It’s just … Kath … I’m used to being told I’m loved when it’s clear that someone doesn’t actually like me.”

She tries to roll, to look at him again, but his arm is tight.

“Kath, I like you.”

And she understands that this means more to him than love, more to him than sex. So she says, “I like you so much,” and feels his smile even if she can’t see it.

***

**_USS Voyager_ , 2374 (after Random Thoughts)**

She passes Tuvok a just-replicated cup of tea. “We all have a violent thought from time to time. If, as you say, B’Elanna is so good at keeping them under control, then I don’t see a problem.”

“The problem, Captain, is not with Ms. Torres.” There’s a _click_ as Tuvok sets his cup on the ready room coffee table. “Mr. Paris’ eagerness to overturn Mari law was not compatible with our duty as Starfleet officers. His relationship with Ms. Torres has clouded his judgment and may present a danger to this ship if not stopped.”

_ Mr. Paris’ eagerness … not compatible … … duty … relationship … danger. _

She wills her hand not to tremble as she reaches for her coffee.

“I’m not going to get involved in officers’ personal lives, Tuvok. If Tom and B’Elanna want to be a couple, it’s natural for them to be protective of each other. The command structure on this ship stands, regardless, and I’m sure we all can handle whatever may happen.”

Because, Tuvok’s disapproving stare notwithstanding, she’ll be damned if she hurts Tom Paris ever again.


	8. You Saved My Life

**_USS Mata Hari_ , 2367**

There probably will be a hearing. 

But if Starfleet launches a full, formal investigation into what she did, she’s ready. When Tom’s on shift, she logs her defense, pulling from regulations concerning ethical responsibilities and prohibiting the killing of innocent life forms. She also researches moral philosophy databases, sending a silent prayer of thanks to Mark as she includes a quote from John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”

When Tom’s not on shift, they talk.

They touch.

They make love.

The shuttle is ahead of schedule, due back to Utopia Planitia a week earlier than planned. After that, she wants them both to get postings close to Earth.

“More complicated flying for you with all that traffic, and more opportunity for me to get a first officer position on a short-term mission. Those captains might be more willing to try someone new.”

They’re in their bunk late at night, his head resting on her chest, and he hums into her skin, a sweet vibration of agreement against her bare breasts.

“What do you think about trying for matching three-months-on, one-month-off rotations?” Her fingers twirl a lock of blond hair. “That would be good, right?”

His head lifts and lazy lips press to hers. “Kath, I would serve on a freight route through the middle of nowhere if that’s what you wanted. I’d take a posting on a transport vessel or a resupply ship. I really don’t care.”

“You don’t care?” Her eyebrows lift.

He shrugs. “It’s a job.”

A knot forms in her stomach. “Starfleet is not just a ‘job.’ It’s about exploration and becoming more than what we are. It’s about first contacts and —”

“I already signed up, you can skip the recruitment speech.” His eyes meet hers and the knot dissolves. He’s not like Mark. He understands. “I’m just pointing out that you care about climbing the ladder and I care about being part of a team. If I feel like I’m contributing, I don’t care what I do, okay?”

She’s warm and content. “Okay.”

A few days later, she’s alone in the cabin when the shuttle comes to a full stop. 

“Computer, have we reached Utopia Planitia?”

“Negative.”

“Where are we?”

“That information is classified.”

She starts to pace. There’s no ship shudders to indicate a firefight, and they’re close enough to Earth that an enemy incursion would be unlikely anyway. The warp core hums, so it’s not engine trouble.

What the hell is going on?

The shuttle begins to move again — in deck plating peaks and valleys that throw her off balance, a hand on a bulkhead so she doesn’t fall.

Tom’s too good of a pilot for this.

Oh God, could something have happened to Tom?

She’s about to run into the command center, confinement to her cabin be damned, when the shuttle plateaus and picks up speed. Then there’s another full stop and the familiar ship-quake of a docking clamp at Utopia Planitia.

A voice she’s never heard comes over the comm. “Stand by for transport directly to Starfleet short-term housing.”

That’s not standard procedure.

Her bag is packed, and she pulls it from the top bunk. There’s a hiss of the cabin door opening and her head whips around to see Tom stagger in as if he’s been punched in the stomach. His eyes are red-rimmed.

“Kath.” She can’t breathe. He’s holding her too tightly. “You saved my life.”

“What?”

The unfamiliar voice returns. “Transport in three ... two ...”

Tom steps away from her, grabs his duffel from his bunk. “I’ll find your room.”

“... one.”

Everything glitters and is gone.

***

**_USS Voyager_ , 2375 (Night)**

The void.

The void.

The void.

She’s filled with the void’s nothing, dying slowly, everything ebbing away.

Ebbing away.

Like in the snow so many years ago.

The void … devoid of stars … cannot avoid.

She sits in a chair in her quarters.

She sits in the void.

There is no time in the void.

There is only the void.

There is … a sound?

She blinks. 

Her padd dings, insistent.

Probably another report about ship’s systems operating at peak efficiency.

It doesn’t matter.

Nothing matters in the void.

The padd dings again.

Hollow eyes turn to the device. Her arm is lead, but she reaches for the screen, squints at the display.

_ Heard you’ve been having a tough time. _

The message disappears.

Her eyebrows drift upwards. Why is Tom messaging her? He knows better.

_ Go to your door. _

The words vanish.

She can’t remember how to reply using the encryption code he taught her. Maybe she knew it years ago. Some kind of self-extracting algorithm?

The door is too far from her chair. Whatever he wants can wait.

_ I will stand in front of this door until you open it. Not very professional of me, is it? People might start to ask questions about why I care so much. _

“Computer, open the door to my quarters.” Her voice rasps.

Of course it does. She only talks when Chakotay comes by once a day.

The door hisses open and closed. There are footsteps, then the purr of a medical tricorder.

“I swiped this from the med lab. It’s disconnected from the central computer and I’ll wipe it before reconnecting.” The tricorder hovers by her head. “Have you been sleeping too much or not enough?”

Does it matter?

“Are you eating?”

Is she?

The device folds in on itself, goes silent. “Your readings aren’t exactly normal, but not bad enough that the Doc would medicate you against your will. So we won’t go down that road. But we are going to talk.”

He sits on the sofa across from her, blond hair dull against the void.

Her forehead aches, but there’s no point in pressing her fingers to where it hurts.

“I’ve been fighting with B’Elanna. I suppose that’s one way to pass the time.”

He’s still together with B’Elanna. That’s … good?

“I once had this amazing girlfriend. We didn’t get into fights. We got into trouble. I miss those days. But, of course, they never happened.”

Her eyebrows drift closer together. What the hell is he doing?

“She says we’re friends now, and I understand that, even though she isn’t engaged to someone else anymore, and I wonder if her first officer has any clue just how minuscule his chances are of getting into her pants because she’s really uptight about command protocol — one of her quirky charms, I used to think — but friends confide in each other and I think she needs to confide in someone.”

He folds his arms.

“I’ll keep talking until you say something back.”

Her eyes burn. “I make bad decisions.” 

She means protecting the Ocampa and stranding her crew in the Delta Quadrant where they’re in this void, this void, this void.

And she knows he knows that, but also that she could be talking about something else, something at a starbase, and he steps toward her and his hand grasps her wrist and he presses her fingers to the exact spot where her forehead hurts and he says, “Please try to see it my way. Please try to see that you do your best with the information you have at the time. Please don’t regret any of it. Because I don’t.”

And her eyelids flutter closed and, even though she’s a void inside the void, a tear leaks down her cheek.


	9. No, Sir

**San Francisco, 2367**

She materializes in a room much like the one she left before the shuttle mission. A quick look out the window confirms she’s in San Francisco. 

There’s a computer terminal on the desk and she logs on. 

There was a battle. 

A massive battle at Wolf 359. 

Nearly forty Federation starships were destroyed by a new enemy, a cybernetic race called the Borg.

Her skin prickles in goosebumps.

If these reports are correct, when she felt the _Mata Hari_ rise and dip, the shuttle was likely weaving through remnants of hull plating, the last home for thousands of officers vaporized or entombed in space but lucky enough to escape “assimilation” by this race of drones.

Nausea roils her stomach.

She keeps reading.

Starfleet ships lost include the _Melbourne_ , the _Bonestell_ — faces flash before her of crewmates from that posting, a science lab filled with bright, curious physicists — the _Saratoga_ , the _Kyushu_ …

Tom. That’s where Tom was supposed to be, the _Kyushu_. That’s what he meant by her saving his life.

She can’t take credit for that. Jellico was the one who —

Her door chimes.

She runs to open it.

He’s there for a second, duffel strap across his chest, then she’s swooped up, legs instinctively wrapping around his waist, his lips pressed furiously to hers.

“We saw ... the wreckage ... on long-range sensors,” he manages between kisses that are fervid, desperate. “Couldn’t ... figure it out … at first. So many people … dead. I would have been killed. You saved me….”

“Tom,” her rear end lands on the bed, “the captain …”

“I know.” He pulls off his duffel strap, toes off his boots. “The captain chose me. But something happened, Kath. I know it. You may not have done anything on purpose, but —”

He’s unzipping his uniform.

Starfleet Academy teaches about survival sex, how the primal nature of the fight or flight response can trigger an extreme libido.

But, as much as she loves him, as much as the sight of his uniform peeling away from his body heightens her own desire to touch him, she also wants to know more about what’s going on.

“What’s our mission status?”

His uniform pools around his feet. “Still covert. As far as our family and friends know, we’re in space, radio silence. Names not among the dead, though. Headquarters has a lot on its plate and not much time for us. We’re supposed to stay in our rooms and await further instructions.”

“Then you’re disobeying orders by being here?”

Her words are those of an upstanding officer, but she’s pulling off her boots. She could have lost him. He could have gone to the _Kyushu_ , and she never would have had the chance to get to know him, to love him.

Besides, it’s not like they can breach mission confidentiality to each other.

“Yeah, I’m disobeying orders.” He takes her boots and tosses them aside. “Is that a problem, Commander?”

“No, sir.”

Hurry-fumbling fingers help remove her uniform, tugging her panties off, too, and she wonders if he’ll be adrenaline-fueled and rougher than usual. That’s okay, she can handle it, if that’s what he needs.

But the thin cloth of her bra drops and his tongue is gentle, soft, languid swirls on one nipple, then the other. His fingertips trace her shoulders, her back, her rear end, caress thighs that are already trembling for him and dip into folds that are already wet for him.

He’s savoring … not her, specifically, though that’s part of it.

He’s savoring life.

He wants to make love to feel not the rush of living, but the beauty of it.

The beauty of a body arching in pleasure at his touch.

The beauty of a cry of delight when he pushes inside and she’s warm and tight and perfect.

The beauty of the woman he loves, sweaty and trembling above him, her eyes glazed as the orgasm gets closer and closer and closer and — it takes her, and she shouts the way she couldn’t all those weeks in the shuttle and he’ll never get tired of seeing her blissed out like this, rosy-cheeked with her hair falling into her face, and he always manages to wait for her, which isn’t easy, and his hips are jerking and he can let himself go now and — yes! — he releases into her and, God that’s good, and she strokes his balls and he loves it when she does that, loves how she cares for him even after they’ve both come.

And she’s chuckling and it’s lazy and content and she says, “It’s as if I could feel what it’s like to be you. Like we’re so connected that I could read your mind and be in your body,” and he understands exactly what she means.

Then the door chimes and they freeze because, somehow, they both know who it is.

“Shit,” he says. “It’s my dad.”

***

**_USS Voyager_ , 2375 (Thirty Days)**

She watches him sleep, sometimes, curled on his side on the brig’s hard bunk.

God, that sounds creepy.

But she needs to get used to seeing him as an ensign again and when the duty roster loses a security officer for night shift — oops — she’ll just so happen to stop by and ask for a report at the right time to volunteer to wait for the relief officer that only she knows won’t arrive.

To guard an officer guilty of mutiny.

What kind of officer would mutiny against a captain?

What kind of officer would deem the protection of life more important than anything else?

And what kind of captain would question that officer’s attempt to put humanity above procedure?

So they both spend time in the brig that exists on _Voyager_ but didn’t on the _Mata Hari_.

The brig is quiet.

Quiet enough to hear Tuvok chastising her. 

“As you’ll see in my report, Captain, Ms. Torres admitted to encouraging Mr. Paris to engage in activity that resulted in unauthorized use of a spacecraft, insubordination, and violation of the Prime Directive. By Ms. Torres’ own account, Mr. Paris likely followed her suggestion in part due to their romantic relationship. Furthermore, while I cannot prove that her actions were direct retribution toward you for agreeing with Mr. Paris’ request to override her medical wishes, Ms. Torres did indicate her continued anger for that decision.”

Quiet enough to hear Chakotay arguing. 

“A reduction in rank _and_ thirty days in the brig? Is that your professional decision, Kathryn — or a personal one?”

Quiet enough that Tom’s unconscious breathing, the breathing that used to calm her, still works. It still takes all the fight out of her and makes her want to sleep, too, and maybe when she wakes up they’ll be back in the runabout and all of this will have been a bad dream or he’ll be happily married to B’Elanna and things will end that way.

She doesn’t really care which one anymore.


	10. We’ll Meet Later

**San Francisco and Alpha Quadrant space, 2367-2369**

Admiral Paris isn’t a patient man, so it’s hardly surprising that the door slides open — his security clearance must be incredible — before the chime even fades. 

And now her former mentor and onetime commanding officer has seen her naked. Fuck. 

She scrambles to get under the blanket. 

His bald head turns away, a hand over his eyes. “What the hell is wrong with you, Tom?”

“What the hell is wrong with _me_?” Tom hurries under the blanket, too. “What the hell is wrong with _you_? What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been assigned to brief everyone from your mission — a mission I only know about because of my position in Starfleet. I tracked your commbadge so I could find you to let you know that your mother has been worried sick. I love you, but how could you be so inconsiderate as to not bother to tell your own mother that you’d been transferred off the _Kyushu_?”

Mother. In all their talks, Tom hadn’t once mentioned his mother. 

“It happened really fast, okay?” She’s never seen Tom this agitated, hand jabs emphasizing his words, fingers raking his hair. “I’m not even technically here now, so I don’t see what I’m supposed to do with that information except feel badly about it.”

And Admiral Paris does the last thing Kathryn expects. 

He walks over to the desk. 

Swivels the chair to face the bed.

Sits.

Hooks his ankle over the opposite knee. 

And, as if his son hadn’t said a word and everyone was fully clothed, proceeds to brief them on the damage wrought by the Borg attack.

He’s long-winded and repetitive to what she already knows, and Kathryn stares at the ceiling wishing she had on her uniform, wishing Starfleet had sent someone else, wishing the bed didn’t have a wet spot in the center with an unmistakable odor. 

“And so,” the admiral has to be nearly done, right? “Commander Shelby is leading the task force, and she estimates close to a year to get the fleet back up. Which means assignments are scarce and everyone should expect to work harder than usual. Starfleet will let you know by the end of the week where you’ll be sent next.”

“Sir,” she props herself on one elbow and holds the blanket tight against her chest with her other hand, “Tom and I were hoping to serve in the same sector.”

The admiral frowns. “On what basis?”

“Dad.” The one syllable drags into two. “Read the room.”

Admiral Paris’ frown deepens. “This wasn’t just, ah, survival sex?”

Dear God, Admiral Paris teaches Survival Strategies at Starfleet Academy.

Tom’s head shakes. “This is the real thing, Dad.”

A blush starts at the Admiral’s neck and creeps up his cheeks. Even his bald spot turns red. 

He jumps to his feet.

“You’ve both been briefed, and I have other officers to visit. Tom, Kathryn, goodbye.”

“Sir,” she calls out before he reaches the door. “What about postings in the same sector?”

The admiral doesn’t turn to look at her. “That won’t be possible. With fewer ships, everyone is stretched thin. Besides, you two have never met. If you had, the _Mata Hari’s_ mission could become public knowledge, risking war with the Romulans and the Cardassians.”

Kathryn’s throat goes dry. “With all due respect, sir, that’s ridiculous. I was engaged to Justin and I met him on a covert mission.”

“A covert mission that failed spectacularly.” The admiral’s back stiffens and Kathryn pushes away the memory of his screams at the hands of Cardassian torturers. “The price of success is keeping a secret — no fake ship names, no Starfleet Medical logs. Headquarters has more pressing needs than the _Mata Hari_ returning ahead of schedule, so you have one week left in a mission that doesn’t officially exist. I suggest you make the most of it.”

And he’s gone.

It’s like zero-grav training.

The room spins, her forehead pounds, and her stomach cartwheels with nausea, again.

Tom is talking. 

“We’ll meet again.” His fingers lace with hers. “We’ll visit the same starbase or arrange for leave on the same planet. We’ll make sure people see us introduce ourselves. It shouldn’t take long.”

But she blinks and it’s two days later and official word comes through clearing her of Captain Jellico’s mutiny charges — and noting that her methods will be standard procedure for future threat elimination missions.

She blinks again and it’s the day after that and Tom is telling her that she’s in a fog and they need to get out of this room.

“We can’t do that.”

But he replicates civilian clothes and floppy hats. He takes her to Sato Gardens on the outskirts of the Starfleet Academy campus, evacuated due to the Borg attack. Leaves rustle and their footfalls echo and she looks up and the sun warms her face. It’s strange not to have a commbadge or orders — and she thanks him for knowing how to help her when she didn’t know how to help herself.

They stay in the gardens until it’s late, the moon rising over the trees.

“Let’s go on a joyride.” He squeezes her hand.

“What?”

“Oakland Shipyard. I know a few passwords.”

And they’re in a shuttle arcing toward the moon. 

He takes a loop through the gravitational field.

A swing around New Berlin.

He’s dipping closer than she’s ever been to the Sea of Clouds. It’s like she could touch them, like she could touch the clouds. 

Her fingers go to the viewport. “Beautiful.”

“I’ll fly you to the moon every day, Kath.”

“Every day until we have to separate so we can ‘meet’ again in a gigantic lie.”

“Every day.”

And he does. They loop and swing and dip every day … until they run out of days, with orders for him to report to the Caldik system and her to the _USS Billings_ nearly five sectors away from him.

She’ll be a full commander, first officer, the minute she steps onboard.

He’ll be a lieutenant helping to evacuate settlers from a terraformed world slowly losing atmospheric cohesion.

She thinks she’s slowly losing atmospheric cohesion.

Their last morning together is quiet, as if they’re still on the _Mata Hari_ , with small, needy sounds and bedsprings that seem too loud.

Then she watches star streaks through a viewport and checks her comms and there are three from her mother, all chattering about goings-on at home, not even mentioning the Borg attack because that would mean acknowledging Starfleet, acknowledging the organization that took away her husband. And there’s a comm from Mark — _Hey, Kath. We haven’t talked in a while. I’m glad you weren’t involved in what happened at Wolf 359. If you’re ever on Earth, let me know and we can get a drink, all right?_ — and nothing from her sister, of course, because they’ve never had anything to talk about without arguing.

She wants to crawl out of her skin, to say fuck the Romulans and fuck the Cardassians and fuck anyone who thinks that love is dangerous, but she and Tom just need to be patient, to meet again, and a message flashes on her screen.

_ Look in your duffel. _

She digs in her bag and finds handwritten instructions to create a self-extracting algorithm. The code will work for only a few seconds, just enough time for something simple like delivering a text-only comm or resetting a console — but without leaving a trace.

_ Has anyone ever told you that you’re a brilliant man? _

_ You’re the first! _

_ I miss you. _

_ I miss you, too. _

Then she’s on the bridge of the _Billings_ , and she keeps an eye on the work and an eye on the crew and she’s busy, so busy, but she and Tom comm at least once a day and she can make it, she can get through this time of separation.

They comm at least once every few days.

They comm at least once a week.

It’s been a month. 

Has it been a month?

Or two months?

Maybe the whole thing was survival sex, maybe they were two people who thought they had a connection but were just afraid of a covert mission and Cardassian space and … being alone.

Maybe she doesn’t understand love the way she thought she did.

She hasn’t seen him for nearly eighteen months and they haven’t corresponded in weeks when there’s a distress call from a starbase roughly between the Caldik system and the _Billings_.

Her comm lights up. _I’ve been dispatched. Are you on your way, too?_

She’s not. Crewmembers were injured trying to survey a volcanic moon. The survey needs to be completed or the _Billings_ will lose six months of research and have to start over. A farther away ship is en route to the starbase.

She beams down to the moon by herself, tricorder in hand, fire spitting in her face.

She rematerializes in the transporter room, sends her data to the project’s lead scientist, and the captain orders the _Billings_ to proceed to the space station at high warp. The farther away ship can continue its previous mission.

If she can see Tom again, she might know.

“Thank goodness the _Billings_ is here.” The commander of the space station greets her as she steps through an airlock. “We released the officers from the Caldik project a few hours ago, as their talents are needed there. But the approaching plasma drifts have put this station in dire ...”

She won’t see him again. She won’t know.

What the hell has she been doing with her life? 

Changing the destinations of entire starships for the hope of “meeting” a man that she may or may not love and, if she does, would have to live a lie with for the rest of her life?

Why does she even think it would be the rest of her life? How well does she really know him? 

She ignores the voice in her head that insists Tom is worth waiting for, that she’s lashing out because it’s difficult for her to accept defeat and this separation has been a temporary defeat, with repeated delays in rebuilding the fleet forcing existing starships to spread out more than normal.

Engineers from the _Billings_ come aboard the station to assist with preparations for a stormy bout of plasma drifts. She ensures the officers understand their orders and, when her shift is over, she heads for a bar where the first waves of plasma drifts rage against space station viewports. The bar is closed due to the emergency, only a few people scattered at tables, but a bartop replicator still works.

She orders herself a whiskey. 

Sweet rises through the bitter, a coolness and a burn she savors before taking another sip.

“Could I buy you a drink, pretty lady?”

She blinks.

The space station commander said he sent the Caldik officers away.

How the hell is Tom here?

He eases onto a barstool next to hers and speaks softly, “I ‘missed the call’ to report back to the Caldik system. I can catch a transport there tomorrow morning, after the storm. For now, I was wondering if you might want to meet me?”

“Why would I want to meet someone like you?” Her whiskey tumbler is cold in her hand.

“What?” His eyebrows, the ones she adored, shift upwards and she has no desire, no desire at all, to smooth them with her thumb.

“You strike me as someone who would break rules and cause trouble. Maybe that’s not what I want in my life.”

His head jerks back as if she had thrown her whiskey in his face.

His hand finds the bartop.

“Is that something you’ve decided or something you want to talk about?”

A plasma drift slams against the viewports. Lights flicker and a computer voice announces, “Upper pylon twelve has buckled, the _USS Billings_ is no longer moored.”

The _Billings_ isn’t maneuverable enough to avoid plasma drifts or big enough, like the space station, to have a hope of enduring them. 

She’s a first officer again, all business, with a capable pilot. “Can you use a runabout to tractor the _Billings_ to another pylon?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

They run.

She slaps her commbadge and informs her captain of her plan. 

Tom stares straight ahead.

He pilots them through narrow spaces between plasma drifts, twisting the small runabout into impossibly tight gaps in the storms.

“I haven’t exactly been happy lately, either.” His hands are a blur on the console, the runabout responding to his commands more and more sluggishly as its computer struggles to keep up. “I’ve worked so many double or triple shifts that I can barely think straight. But I was going to ask if you wanted to take leave together. I don’t care where we go. Risa. A science conference on some hellscape, desert planet. It’s not good to be apart for this long. But if you don’t want to be together, then there’s nothing left to say.”

She can’t let herself be distracted by the thought of waking up next to him, sleepy bodies wrapped up in each other, soft breaths in sync.

“It’s not a matter of not wanting to be together.” She redistributes power so the runabout can maximize thruster control. “We can’t serve on the same ship, so we can never truly be together. Do we spend our lives waiting for leave or nearby postings that may or may not happen? Can we even build a life based on a lie?”

The _Billings_ comes into view and she locks on with a tractor beam. Tom pivots the runabout, and the Billings jerks from the remnants of pylon twelve to the strength of pylon eleven, which activates and holds the ship tight.

She disengages the tractor beam. “Nice work.”

But he curses and she doesn’t understand why and then she looks up from her console and there’s a roiling plasma drift headed right toward them.

“Brace for impact!”

Everything blurs and goes black. 

A hand shakes her shoulder. “Kath, the runabout is badly damaged. Half our systems are non-functional. I have starboard thrusters and can get you back to the _Billings_. Okay?”

It’s like her brain is stuffed with cotton. “Okay.”

///

**Runabout, 2369**

A hand shakes her shoulder. “Kath, the runabout is badly damaged. Half our systems are non-functional. I have port thrusters and can get us back to the starbase. Okay?”

It’s like her brain is stuffed with cotton. “Okay.”

***

**_USS Voyager_ , 2375 (after Bride of Chaotica)**

“Great job, Queen!” Tom’s grin is huge and she knows hers matches. “I knew Chaotica would be like putty in your hands.”

Her Arachnia dress rustles as she strides down the corridor next to him. “I wouldn’t go that far, but thanks.”

“Well, it was fun saving the cosmos with you.” He winks and turns at the junction. “See ya.”

It _was_ fun. 

Maybe they’ve finally found peace. 

Maybe they can be just friends, simple, undemanding friends. 

That would be nice. 

///

**_USS Helen_ , 2375 **

“I want to know where the hell those Jem'Hadar attack ships came from and why we didn’t pick them up on sensors.” Another blast nearly sends her flying her out of her captain’s chair. “Keep hailing them. Tell them this is a science vessel with no strategic importance for the war.”

Not exactly true, but why would Kathryn tell the Jem’Hadar that her ship conveys defense supplies to planets across three sectors?

The _USS Helen_ shudders again. 

“Captain, one more hit and we could lose aft shields.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Wait. 

Old ideas can be the best ideas. 

“Mr. Lavelle, scan for solar flares. We can use our maneuverability to try to lure the Jem’Hadar into a situation where they can’t take the heat.”

“Scanning, Captain.” The lieutenant commander jabs at his command computer. “Bingo. Sending coordinates to the conn. Think you can fly us through that, Jean?”

Lieutenant Hajar nods. “Laying in course.”

God, she loves this crew.

There’s a space race, a tight turn through a solar flare, and the Jem’Hadar ships incinerate. 

“Yes!”

Sam Lavelle is nothing if not eager. 

And a hell of a good first officer. 

“Nice work, Mr. Lavelle, Ms. Hajar.” Kathryn studies her computer. “Looks like most of our damage was structural, plus scattered crewmember injury reports — nothing too bad.”

She dispatches repair teams, orders sensor diagnostics, stands at Ms. Hajar’s shoulder to see how her helmswoman will compensate for lost time to keep them on schedule for their rendezvous with the _Bellerophon_.

“Captain, I recommend that you go check status in sickbay. Never can be too careful about these things. I’ll handle any questions from the repair teams.” 

Sam’s tone is faux-stern and she answers him in kind. 

“Perhaps that might be best. You have the conn, Mr. Lavelle.”

She keeps her grin inside until she reaches the turbolift. 

There’s an EMH program active in sickbay. “Please state the nature of the medical emergency.”

“The medical emergency is I am looking for the doctor onboard this ship. Have you seen him?”

The hologram seems … annoyed?

“That’s not part of my program. May I suggest you invest in a pair of binoculars?”

“Computer, deactivate EMH.” The hologram disappears and the real doctor emerges from the bio-lab. “Sorry about that. I wanted an extra pair of hands to get everyone patched up and I figured even holographic assistance could be useful.”

She chuckles. “Understood. And since my ship’s doctor is just a few months out of medical school, perhaps the EMH taught him a thing or two?”

Wispy eyebrows rise. “Are you questioning my medical capabilities?”

“Not in the slightest, doctor. I know to mind my manners around the one person on this ship who can give me orders.”

“And don’t you forget it.” He winks. “See you tonight. I have a surprise for you in our quarters.”

She doesn’t tell him that she accidentally found the engagement ring a few weeks ago. 

“Can’t wait, doctor.” She turns just before the sickbay door opens for her. “Oh, and just in case you forgot since I told you this morning — I like you.”

Tom’s smile will always and forever flutter her heart. “I like you, too, Captain. I like you so much.”

She practically floats back to the bridge. 


	11. You Aren’t Going to Come With Me?

**Alpha Quadrant space, 2369**

The runabout is losing energy, fast, but Tom tells her over and over that he’ll get her to the _Billings_. 

“If I can fly through the atmospheric disturbances on Caldik Prime, I can fly through anything,” he promises. “Nearly there.”

“I … I want to finish our discussion.” The plasma drifts are so bright. Her eyelids are so heavy. If she just lets them close ...

“Hey, Kath. Stop that. You hit your head on your console. I think you have a concussion. Don’t let yourself fall asleep, okay?”

“Okay.” 

He pulls alongside the _Billings_. “No plasma drifts between us and the ship, so you’re good for transport. I’ll put you in sickbay, all right? Tell the doctor that you hit your head. Can you remember to say, ‘I hit my head’?”

“I … uh … you …” Eyelids are so heavy. “You aren’t going to come with me?”

“How would we explain that, Kath?” He pulls a padd from a pocket under the helm. “We’re two people who don’t know each other and we just happened to be in a runabout together after I skipped out on my assignment? Just promise me that we’ll try to meet again. If you don’t remember, I’ll understand, but I need to hear you promise.”

He’s blurry. Everything is spinning. “I promise.” 

He pushes the padd into her hands, taps his console, and the bright lights of the _Billings_ sickbay send pain stabbing across her head and she tastes stomach acid and whiskey.

She wakes up on a biobed, the _Billings_ doctor staring down at her. 

“You have a very hard head, Commander Janeway.”

“So I’ve been told. What happened?”

The doctor holds up a padd. “You were transported into my sickbay with this.”

The display reads, _Suspected severe concussion. May need cortical analeptic treatment._

And she remembers everything. 

“How did you get this padd, Commander? It’s my understanding that someone assisted you in a runabout, but no one knows the person’s identity.”

Tom could be a hero.

But how would she explain why she trusted him to help her save the _Billings_ , much less how she knew he could fly?

Officers who expose covert missions can get drummed out of Starfleet. 

Not to mention the possibility of triggering a two-front war.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I didn’t catch the person’s name.”

The doctor nods crisply. “Well, whoever it was made a good diagnosis that saved us time in treating you. You’re cleared for light duty. We left the starbase and should enter the Yridia nebula any minute now.”

The Yridia nebula has radioactive cosmic gases, so sensors will have heavy interference and subspace communication won’t work.

“Understood. Thank you, doctor.”

Radioactivity damages systems faster than expected. Engineers compensate, but it takes time, and the priority is shields to minimize the crew’s radiation exposure. 

It’s a week in the nebula.

Then two.

Three.

She wants to take Tom up on his offer. She has leave time accumulated and he’s right — they need to talk. Their jobs put them in an impossible position as far as the command chain and she can’t see a way to make things work, but she owes it to him to listen to what he has to say. Maybe he’ll have an idea, something she’s overlooked.

When the _Billings_ clears the nebula, she counts the minutes until her shift is over and she can check her comms.

Fifty-two messages from Tom? What the hell?

Words flash in front of her, then disappear forever.

_ Heard you got sent to no-comms-land. Hope to talk when you get back. _

_ I’ve decided to write you at least once a day, even if I feel like I have nothing to say. Maybe that will help. I didn’t want to drag you down, but Caldik is awful. I ferry colonists off a planet they fouled up with their own lousy terraforming. Ten trips a day. Everyone says Starfleet is great for doing this work, but I’m really a glorified bus driver through an atmosphere falling apart around me. Maybe the other pilots don’t mind it. I don’t know because we never get a chance to talk to each other between runs. Anyway, I’ve requested a transfer to anywhere. I just hope you understand if we’re farther away from each other. I can’t stay here. _

_ Another day, another ten loads of colonists delivered from Caldik Prime to Caldik Not-So-Prime-But-It-Has-An-Atmosphere. _

_ Same shit, different day. Pick up, drop off, that’s me. I hope the nebula you’re exploring is more interesting than my bus route. _

_ No word on a transfer. I’ll keep putting in requests. _

_ Kath, I fucked up. I fucked up a lot — and I don’t know which secrets to keep anymore and which ones to tell. _

_ I’m scared. _

_ I keep having these really vivid nightmares. I don’t know what to do. I can’t eat. _

_ I’m going to confess. I just hope Starfleet understands. I thought I could do the run faster, clock out early and put in more transfer requests before falling asleep to do it all again. I didn’t know the atmospheric degradation was accelerating. I didn’t want this. _

_ If you noticed this isn’t a Starfleet frequency — and I’m sure you did — then you know how my misconduct hearing went. _

_ You know how when people are drunk they tell the truth? Well, I am very, very drunk. And the truth is that I deserved this. I deserved all of this. I’m an idiot. I fuck up everything. Stay away from me. _

_ Kath, I found a job. Flying, but maybe I can help some people. Don’t worry. I’ll be okay. _

There are no more messages.

“Computer,” she fights to keep her voice steady, “open a personal channel to Starfleet Command, Admiral Paris.”

The admiral’s mouth is a hard line. “Kathryn.”

“Admiral.”

His eyes narrow. “I know you never met my son, but he’s rotting in a prison cell for treason against the Federation due to associating himself with a terrorist organization known as the Maquis. This is a difficult time for my family, and I trust you will respect our privacy.”

The screen goes black.

///

**Alpha Quadrant space, 2369**

The runabout is losing energy, fast, but Tom tells her over and over that he’ll get them to the starbase.

“If I can fly through the atmospheric disturbances on Caldik Prime, I can fly through anything,” he promises. “Nearly there.”

“I … I want to finish our discussion.” The plasma drifts are so bright. Her eyelids are so heavy. If she just lets them close ...

“Hey, Kath. Stop that. You hit your head on your console. I think you have a concussion. Don’t let yourself fall asleep, okay?”

“Okay.” 

He docks the runabout and the small ship powers down. “I’ll wander off on my own if you can make your way to the infirmary. Tell the doctor that you hit your head. Can you remember to say, ‘I hit my head’?”

“I … uh … you …” Eyelids are so heavy. “You aren’t going to come with me?”

“How would we explain that, Kath?” He pulls a padd from a pocket under the helm. “We’re two people who don’t know each other and we just happened to be in a runabout together after I skipped out on my assignment? Just promise me that we’ll try to meet again. If you don’t remember, I’ll understand, but I need to hear you promise.”

He’s blurry. Everything is spinning. “I promise.”

He pushes the padd into her hands. She stands, but the movement sends pain stabbing across her head and she tastes stomach acid and whiskey.

She wakes up on a biobed, the starbase doctor staring down at her. 

“You’re going to be fine,” the doctor says. “Your ship delayed a mission to the Yridia nebula until you’re cleared to come aboard. Seems you inspire all kinds of loyalty, Commander.”

The doctor is looking at someone on the other side of Kathryn’s biobed.

Tom.

The doctor grins. “I’ve spent time at every bar on this starbase, but I’ve never met someone and, less than a minute later, invited him to join me on a risky runabout mission because he had ‘good piloting hands.’”

The bar. That’s right. She was angry, discouraged. Tom was there and then they were in a runabout … yes.

“Good hands,” Tom chuckles, “but a lousy sense of timing. I’m still kicking myself for missing the call to get back to my post. Thanks again for smoothing things over with my commanding officer, doc.”

“As long as you think about what we discussed, Mr. Paris, I’ll consider it an even trade.” The doctor looks down at Kathryn again. “You can return to light duty, but I’d like you to relax a little, maybe use a few of our station’s amenities. Your ship is getting some extra maintenance and there’s no sense in rushing back if you don’t have to.”

“Thank you, doctor.” 

She slides off the biobed. 

Tom speaks just loudly enough for his voice to carry. “Nice to meet you. My name’s Tom.”

“Some people call me Kathryn, but you can call me Kath.” She laces her fingers with his. “Looks like I was right about those pilot’s hands.”

The doctor’s chortle fades as they exit the infirmary.

The corridor is full of officers and civilians.

“I’ve never run through a space station with an unconscious woman in my arms, but I suppose there are more unusual ways to get acquainted.” He squeezes her hand. “Even if we got off to a strange start, maybe we could talk and get to know each other?”

“I’d like that. If I recall correctly, when we met, you called me a pretty lady and offered to buy me a drink, but we got distracted. How about I take you up on your offer?”

Tom’s smile is big and bright.

They find a small table in a corner of a crowded bar. He orders spinach juice. Her eyebrows raise, but she asks for the same.

He tells her that even though they’ve only just met, he wants to share what’s been on his mind because it’s a lot — too much to write out, even if he had someone to write to — and he wants her to know.

How he’s been miserable at his post.

How he’s been afraid to ask for a transfer because there are so few positions, especially for pilots as the fleet rebuilds, and he could get something even worse.

How he was eight years old when his father took him up in an old S-class shuttle with clunky, manual controls. He struggled to keep the ship level, but then everything made sense and he could fly — and his father decided right then and there that Tom would be a pilot. But he’s never felt joy at the helm, even though he’s damn good at it.

The doctor at the starbase infirmary praised him for correctly diagnosing and knowing how to treat a concussion, and for keeping his wits about him during a medical emergency.

His favorite classes at Starfleet Academy were in biochemistry — he could tell her a funny story sometime about a glucose-to-fructose experiment — and one of his favorite memories from childhood was when a baby bird fell out of its nest and landed on the windowsill next to his bed. He used an eye dropper to feed the bird until it was strong enough to fly away on its own.

It would take a few years, but he thinks he’d like to be a doctor. He loves the idea of taking care of a crew, helping them stay healthy and enjoy their time in space beyond their duties. The doctor at the starbase infirmary offered to recommend him for training at Starfleet Medical. 

“I know that’s a lot to lay on someone I just met.” Tom’s spinach juice is drained. “But what do you think?”

Their eyes meet.

Contentment blossoms in Kathryn’s belly. Her fingertip circles the rim of her own empty glass.

“I think one person in a blue uniform and one person in a red uniform could have a long-lasting relationship, even if some people thought their feelings for each other might be Fleeting. I think I’m really glad I met you — and I think that if I’m the kind of woman who notices pilot’s hands, then, despite what I may have indicated to a few people in the past, doctor’s hands could be fantastic.”

He laughs, pure relief, and pushes his green-stained glass aside to take her hand. “I like you so much.”

“Hey,” she holds his hand in both of hers, “I like you, too. How about you forget about going back to Caldik? If the _Billings_ is going to the Yridia nebula and you’re applying to Starfleet Medical, I’ll bet my captain would let you come onboard as an observer to study effects of radiation on living tissue.”

He leans forward. “People won’t think inviting someone you just met onboard your ship a little impulsive?”

“Oh, I already have a reputation for that. I’ll tell you about a volcanic moon I surveyed and a few other stories.” Her grin is mischievous. “We can chat in my quarters. A whole room that’s mine, complete with a double bed that isn’t bunked and a bathroom with a water shower.”

“Sounds pretty luxurious.” He grins back. “I might spend a lot of time there. When I’m not getting to know your friends and telling them the story of how you asked me to go with you on a crazy mission within seconds of meeting me.” 

“Well,” she admits, “I’ve really only made one friend on the _Billings_. I think you’ll like him, though. Smart guy. Very thorough about tactical procedure. His name is Tuvok.”

***

**_USS Voyager_ , 2376 (Pathfinder)**

“Just a minute.”

She dabs under her eyes, then drops the tissue into the bottom drawer of her ready room desk. The drawer is getting full, again, but it’s about damn time there are tears of joy in there. 

“Come in.”

The door hisses open.

A joke flutters through her mind about one member of the Paris family having the manners to wait after chiming.

Oh, bad girl. Those days are long gone.

She smiles at her friend. “How are you doing, Tom?”

He smiles back, but his head shakes.

“Confused.”

“I can understand that.” She motions for him to take a seat. “Want to talk about it?”

He sits in one of the guest chairs.

Stands again.

Paces.

“He said he misses me. That he’s proud of me. That’s … that’s incredible. But it’s not like him.”

“Your father has had almost six years to think about how he’s handled himself in the past. Perhaps he learned a few lessons.”

Or perhaps, almost six years ago, someone yelled and made threats and leveled accusations in a way that Admiral Owen Paris was unaccustomed to experiencing.

///

**_USS Helen_ , 2376**

She startles awake to what’s become a familiar sound.

“Tom.” She strokes his shoulder. “Wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

Tears trickle from his closed eyes into the swirls of his ears. Before all this started, she had never heard sleep-sobbing, cries muffled by immersion in another world, a person’s own mind fighting with reality and imagination.

She reaches for the tissue box on her nightstand.

“I’m here, Tom. Wake up and talk to me.”

His chest shudders and his eyes snap open. “Oh God.”

She hands him a tissue.

He wipes his temples, dries his ears. “I’m — I’m so sorry.”

“Please don’t be sorry. Was it the same one?”

He nods.

He dreams about the Breen attack on Starfleet Headquarters, about his father dying. He won’t believe her — can’t believe her — when she says it’s not his fault.

“Damn.” The tissue crumples in Tom’s fist. “He always said crying was a sign of weakness. I never could make him proud of me.”

“You’re an incredible man and you’re going to be a wonderful father because you learned from his mistakes.” As if their tiny live cargo was listening, there’s a kick to her bladder. “Tuvok agrees.”

Tom rewards her with a watery smile. “I know you miss your friend, but we are not naming our baby ‘Tuvok.’”

She knows, but the joke is fun — and finding out that the _Voyager_ crew is alive in the Delta Quadrant sent the best kind of shockwaves through Starfleet. She and Tom had toasted Plomeek tea in honor of their friend from the _Billings_.

“Kath, you said you had nightmares for a few months after your dad died. It’s been more than a few months. Do you think if we had —”

“He closed the door, we didn’t.” Her fingers caress her belly as if to protect baby Tuvok from anything bad ever happening. “That was his choice.”

Tom’s hand rests on top of hers.

“You’re right. I just —” he dabs under his eyes with his crumpled tissue, “I hope I can find some sort of peace with never having the relationship with him that I wanted.”

She doesn’t have the relationship with her mother that she wants. How can someone not acknowledge a years-long war or hard-won peace? How can someone hate Starfleet so much that any conversation that strays from goings-on in Bloomington is a minefield of affronts to cognitive dissonance?

But there’s hope with her mother. Things could work out the way they have with her sister, both of them choosing to work through old hurts to understand the other’s perspective. Tom has lost that hope with his father. And no matter how much he talks with his mother and sisters, he’ll never have what he didn’t want to believe still mattered to him.

Tom Paris will never hear his father say he’s proud of him.

And his hurt is her hurt and she pulls him into her arms as best she can with her big belly and her lips find his and in the darkness of their quarters there are soft, gentle kisses of sadness and love.


	12. Welcome Home, Kathryn

**Alpha Quadrant space, 2369-2371**

She’s been on transport ships for days. 

When the _Billings_ was in the Yridia nebula, Admiral Patterson had sent her a comm.

“Congratulations,” her former professor’s proud smile had shined from her screen, “ _Captain_ Katie Janeway!” 

She doesn’t have the fourth pip yet. There’s going to be a ceremony at Starfleet Command. 

So many new captains.

So many new ships.

She had her pick, and _Voyager_ seemed best. Still under construction at Utopia Planitia, but she likes the idea of a small, fast ship, and this one has fifteen decks, bio-neural circuitry, and a sustainable cruise velocity of warp 9.975. 

No one she knows would love to pilot a ship like that. 

No one at all.

She has plenty of leave time, so she stops in the Taris Seti system, visits the Firefall Mountains and the Ocean of Dreams, ignores couples walking hand in hand near the Harmony Forest. The sun casts long shadows when she happens upon the dog shelter, a litter of puppies in the window. 

Irish setters. 

Little balls of brown fluff tumbling over each other.

One yawns, extending a small, pink tongue. 

Another wiggles, its tiny tummy a pendulum that swings floppy ears.

Kathryn’s fingertips go to the window. 

She hasn’t had a dog in so long. 

That’s life in space. 

But _Voyager_ won’t be ready for months and months, possibly even a year, and then the ship is expected to return to Earth often. Kathryn’s sister probably won’t volunteer to dog-sit again, but her mother might be willing. And there are always Starfleet kennels. 

A bell rings over the shelter door as she enters. 

It rings again as she exits, the tiniest pup of the litter on a leash, the pup who walked on the backs and heads of her brothers and sisters to greet Kathryn, pushing her furry head into a hand willing to scratch behind her ears.

Mollie. 

They step off the last transport together and beam to Bloomington. The big backyard of the Janeway farmhouse will be better for an energetic puppy than Starfleet housing.

Not that Kathryn associates Starfleet housing with anyone in particular.

It’s past midnight, but Gretchen Janeway stands from the front porch glider. “Welcome home, Kathryn.”

Her mother’s hug is perfunctory, no warmth.

It’s summer, humid, and Kathryn’s uniform jacket is zipped — but she’s suddenly cold. 

Gretchen crouches to pet Mollie, then straightens. “I’m glad we’ll have some time together, Kathryn. Your old room is just as you left it.”

The whole house is just as Kathryn left it. Years don’t affect this place where her father’s golf clubs still sit in the closet where Kathryn stows her duffel bag.

She’s got to get out of here.

“I’m going to take Mollie for a walk,” she announces, digging in her duffel for a padd. “Her legs could use a good stretch.”

Gretchen pats her daughter’s shoulder. “Bloomington is just as wonderful as ever. I think you’ll enjoy getting reacquainted with it.”

Kathryn practically runs from the house, padd in her clenched fist, Mollie yipping with excitement as Starfleet boots kick up dust on a lonely stretch of road.

She loves her puppy. 

But she needs more than a dog in her life. 

They find the dog park and Kathryn sits on a bench. Trees rustle overhead and there’s a bright moon that she refuses to appreciate for anything more than casting light to see her padd.

_ Hi there, stranger,_ she types. _Guess who’s on Earth and would love to take you up on that offer to get a drink sometime._

She was short-sighted, deciding things wouldn’t work out with Mark because he didn’t see the attraction of a life in Starfleet and therefore couldn’t understand why her job means so much to her.

Mark is nice.

Mark is safe.

Mark is good enough in bed and, according to her padd, is already typing a reply.

_ Hi, Kath. I’ve just ended a relationship and may be on the rebound. Consider yourself warned that I’m looking for a real commitment this time. No games. _

He’s communicative.

He’s straightforward, no secrets, nothing to hide.

He’s outside of any chain of command and would never even jaywalk, much less do something incredibly stupid and get arrested for treason.

_ I understand. I’ve been in space for a while. I’m looking for something real, too. _

And it is. It’s meeting for drinks in San Juan, rum in her belly, and getting lost in thoughtful, brown eyes. It’s dancing in a little nightclub in Geneva, his hands tight on her hips. It’s a day on the beach in St. Barths and she’s not just warm from the sun, it’s this man she was foolish enough to take for granted and lucky enough to have found again.

“You’re amazing,” she says.

He has a book-filled apartment, a job that requires an agile mind, and a sweet, teasing smile.

“You’re amazing, too,” he says. 

He doesn’t ask about her work, and that’s good because it’s just schematics right now, scratching Mollie’s fast-growing ears and learning a brand-new ship, and it wouldn’t be fun or helpful to have someone around who would understand how Jefferies tube junction fourteen alpha seems oddly placed or why the bioneural gelpacks’ energy grid interface might need a few tweaks or how the navigational sensors might benefit from recalibration to enhance the range.

And Mark is stable. That’s great because Tom — not that she thinks about Tom much at all — Tom was a risk-taker, a rule-breaker, an impulsive, typical pilot who acted as if his body was a starship.

In motion when he was agitated. 

Withdrawing when he was sad. 

Needing touch to feel connected. 

Yes, she shares some of those qualities. But Mark’s more cerebral, more patient nature means that while she had to ask Tom to give her oral sex, Mark will volunteer — and she really doesn’t care what Mark thinks about down there because he makes her thighs tremble and her back arch and her vision go spotty. 

And then he’ll do it again.

And again.

“Oh God, I love you,” she shouts and she’s looking at the ceiling and Mark’s head lifts from between her legs and his eyes are glassy and his lips are slick and he seems dazed, but he says, “I love you, too.”

Because orgasms and openness and intelligence — that’s … that good.

Her mother and sister aren’t interested in attending the ceremony at Starfleet Command, but she gets her fourth pip on a stage with other new captains ready to command new ships. Mark gives her a bouquet of roses and Admiral Paris sits in the audience, eyes narrowed to slits.

She can’t wait for her inspection tour for _Voyager_ , for her first orders direct from headquarters.

“Mollie is at my house too much,” she tells Mark. “I want her to get to know your place before I ship out.”

She doesn’t mention that Mollie seems to like the farmhouse with its big backyard and the doggie bed Kathryn replicated and put under a sunny window. 

Mark glances around his small apartment. “I don’t know if my place is really set up for a dog, Kath. Maybe Mollie could just stay at your house.”

Her arms fold. “Love me, love my dog.”

Mark bursts out laughing. 

“Your crew is going to follow you anywhere, Kath. You’re cute when you’re commanding.” 

Her lips twitch into a grin. “So that’s a yes?”

“Of course.”

But Mollie howls at night and soils the rugs. 

“I’m sorry.” Kathryn directs a cleaning beam at a particularly filthy piece of carpet. “I didn’t think she would do this.”

“It’s okay.” Mark packs up the leash and the doggie bed. “Maybe we should get a place together with a big yard for Mollie and a couple of kids someday.”

There’s a ringing in Kathryn’s ears and she can’t feel the cleaning device in her hand. “Kids?”

Mark’s forehead furrows. “Do you not want kids?”

“I … I want kids.”

Mark pulls the cleaning device from her frozen fingers. 

He holds her hands.

Drops to one knee. 

“How ’bout it, Kath? How ’bout we get married?”

And his thoughtful eyes are filled with hope and, yes, he’s sweet and funny and great at oral sex and good enough at the rest of it and, yes, this man can make her happy and he’s safe and, yes, yes, she’ll marry him. “Yes.”

His arms encircle her and he says he wants to give her a special book as an engagement gift and she tells herself that this is a good choice.

Her orders arrive. 

The Badlands. 

No pilot can maneuver a starship through those plasma storms. 

Plasma drifts. 

Plasma storms. 

Plasma drifts.

_ Just promise me that we’ll try to meet again. If you don’t remember, I’ll understand, but I need to hear you promise. _

“Admiral Paris.” She jogs to match his stride on a path connecting Starfleet Academy and Starfleet Command. “I have a proposal for you.”

“In regards to what?” He moves quickly for a man of his age. 

“In regards to your son.”

The admiral whirls on her. “What son? There’s a felon in a penal settlement in New Zealand with my son’s name, but I don’t recognize that man.”

Tom … Tom has been on Earth all this time? She had assumed he was on one of the penal colonies in other systems. 

My God.

“Your son is on this planet and you don’t even try to see him? You pretend that he doesn’t exist because he made a mistake? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Officers stop and turn. 

“Someone disappointed you, Admiral, and your response was to cut him off, to deny his importance to your life? Someone didn’t live up to your expectations and you didn’t look at yourself to see what you did wrong, how you could have been a better person, what you could have done to help the situation?”

The admiral’s face is red.

He grabs her elbow, a tight grip, and the puffs of air that escape his nostrils are pure rage.

He pulls her, hard, down the path and up the stairs of Starfleet Command. He shoves her into a chair in his office.

“Don’t you ever shout at me again, young lady. Don’t you dare speak about my son in public or in private. That boy needed to stay sharp, stay nimble. But he was going to orbit you like some pitiful piece of space garbage and forget about his own career.”

And she knows why Tom couldn’t get transferred off Caldik.

“You,” she can’t get enough air, “you didn’t want Tom to be with anyone. You wanted him to fly, fly, fly, but never land with a partner because that could slow him down.”

The admiral glares at her. “I saw that man who gave you flowers at your pip ceremony. That’s the way to do it. Captaincy, then romance. That’s the way to conduct a first-rate Starfleet career. And my son should have had that chance.”

“No!” She stands so quickly that her chair crashes to the carpeted floor. “Your son should have had a father who didn’t interfere with his career. Your son should have had a father who was proud of him, who loved him without caveat. Your son should have had a father who listened and who cared and who got to know him because your son — your son is an incredible man whose biggest problem is having your ungrateful, judgmental, selfish behavior hold him back his whole life. And I can only hope that he gets out of prison and ends up somewhere far, far away from the likes of you.”

The admiral’s mouth hangs open. 

She pushes past him to get out of this office, out of this building, out into fresh air that she gulps and this is the same air on the same planet as Tom and she has to do something. 

Admiral Patterson. 

Admiral Patterson will listen to her. He has the seniority to accomplish just about anything and he could pull the right strings to get Tom out of prison.

And as sure as her name is Kathryn Janeway, she knows that when _Voyager_ leaves for the Badlands, Tom Paris will be aboard that ship.

///

**Alpha Quadrant space, 2369-2371**

The shuttle is a rental, but a nice one, and Tom may not want to be a pilot anymore but the trip to Earth is more fun when he skips across planetary rings or circles asteroids. 

When the _Billings_ was in the Yridia nebula, Admiral Patterson had sent her a comm.

“Congratulations,” her former professor’s proud smile had shined from her screen, “ _Captain_ Katie Janeway!” 

Her quarters had blurred as Tom picked her up and spun with her, her head tipped back, gleeful laugh bubbling from her belly. “Captain! Captain!”

And they wouldn’t be in a hurry except Tom sent his application to Starfleet Medical, observations on micro-cellular impacts of nebula radiation included as an addendum, and heard back right away. If he takes a few summer courses in xenobiology and immunology, he can have a seat in the fall class.

His face had gone slack and her touch to his shoulder had seemed to bring him back to himself. “Tom, you’re happy, right? This is what you wanted?”

“It’s what I never let myself consider.” His exhale had been shaky. “But I want to give it my best shot.”

She reads him specs while he flies. The sooner she requests a ship, the more likely she is to get her first choice. She likes the scrappiness of the _Equinox_ , the clean lines of _Voyager_ , the flexibility of the _Helen_.

“Pick the ship that can be just a ship.” He taps for autopilot, stands and stretches. “If you ever have to activate the self-destruct, you don’t want to mourn a friend, you want to appreciate a piece of technology.”

She hadn’t thought of it that way. 

She requests the _Helen_.

“How do you know so much?” She slides into the pilot’s seat. 

“Easy.” His kiss is gentle on top of her head. “I always make the mistake of the ship becoming my friend.”

That must be what makes him a great pilot. He talks to a friend, not a console. 

It’s his turn to read out loud and she learns about vascular differences in carbon-based versus silicon-based lifeforms. 

They find an apartment near Starfleet Medical, big enough to be comfortable for them both, small enough that he won’t rattle around when she’ll be away. 

“You’ll be so busy studying that you’ll barely miss me.” She pulls the lid off a storage container. 

Warm hands are on her hips, her waist, her breasts through her shirt. He breathes into the nape of her neck. “I’ll miss you so much.”

And she’s done this her whole damn life, justified her actions instead of being honest with herself, and her cheeks flush and she turns in his arms. “I’ll miss you, too.”

And his lips are soft, sweet, then the air is cool on her skin and she loves the way he touches her, fingertips learning her body every time, and he’s familiar and he’s fun and the bed is soft under her hands and knees and he’s behind her, inside her, a hand splayed on her lower back, murmuring — God, I love the way you feel — and her legs tremble and they’ve made love so many times but never like this, never in a _home_ , and his fingers move to touch between her legs and she’s whimpering — oh, oh, oh — and he speeds up, gives her the friction she needs, and she’s tight, so tight, and his hips jerk and he cries out and hearing him, no worries about bulkheads or hurry because the rented shuttle was on autopilot, hearing his cry of pleasure electrifies every cell in her body and she slams into her own orgasm so hard that she can’t breathe.

It won’t be easy to grab a duffel and go.

But they have months and months before the _Helen_ will be ready, and afternoon sunlight filters through the apartment windows as she leans against one arm of the sofa, memorizing schematics, and he leans against the other, learning the basics of xenobiology and immunology, their legs tangled. 

“Do you think Jefferies tube junction fifty-three beta seems oddly placed?” She passes him her padd.

“Yes. The turns are too tight from the converging sections.” He passes two padds back. “Do you think this diagram of antibody aggression adaptations to the Thelusian flu looks like starship attack squadron pattern alpha-gamma three two-two?

“Yes! The lead ships — I mean antibodies — are practically in formation.”

The days go by quickly. 

Their boots crunch fallen leaves on the walk from the Bloomington transporter station to the Janeway farmhouse. 

“My mom is …” She doesn’t know how to explain why she’s avoided this for so long, why the air in her mother’s house always hangs heavy in her lungs, why she wants to run the other way.

He squeezes her hand. “I look forward to meeting her because she’s your mom.”

But his eyes widen at the men’s golf clubs in the closet where they hang their jackets and wispy eyebrows rise when Gretchen Janeway flinches at his mention of Starfleet Medical. 

“There’s something wrong with your mom,” he says on the walk back to the transporter station. 

“I know.”

And neither of them mention the dozens of comms Tom has sent his parents and received no reply.

But admirals are expected to attend pip ceremonies, especially for this many new captains, and she steps off the stage into a hug from Tom, and Admiral Paris sits in the audience, his eyes narrowed to slits.

Tom approaches his father, hand out to shake.

The admiral turns and walks away.

Her orders arrive.

Patrolling the outskirts of the Carraya system near the edge of Romulan space, practically in the Beta Quadrant.

It’s a lousy assignment. Starfleet usually sends new ships on missions that are weeks long, not a year so far away from Earth.

Tom’s fingers rake his hair. “You and I both know why you have these orders.”

He’s out their front door and running down the street. She chases after him. “Tom, it’s all right. We’ll make it work.”

But Admiral Paris is nothing if not consistent, and he’s walked the path from his Survival Strategies class at Starfleet Academy to his office at Starfleet Command every Tuesday and Thursday at 1430 hours for more than a decade. 

Tom catches up to his father and snags him by the elbow. “It wasn’t enough to try to control me, so now you fuck with my girlfriend’s orders? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Officers stop and turn.

“You want to ignore my comms, Dad? Fine. But since when is it acceptable to use official Starfleet business to punish your son for the crime of living his own life?”

The puffs of air that escape Admiral Paris’ nostrils are pure rage.

“You will not berate me — in public or in private. I have nothing to say to you.” The admiral’s red face swivels toward Kathryn. “Or to you.”

Her stomach twists. Her mentor. They had a good working relationship, once upon a time. “Sir, if we could all just talk —”

And Admiral Patterson, sweet, gentle Admiral Patterson, steps over and says, “Katie, Tom, Owen. You’ve gained the attention of cadets and Starfleet personnel. I expect you to reconvene your discussion in the admiral’s office.”

Admiral Patterson outranks Admiral Paris.

The elder Paris man cocks his head. Tom and Kathryn follow him to Starfleet Command, passersby watching.

In his office, Admiral Paris extends a hand, exaggerated gallantly, toward two chairs in front of his desk.

They sit.

He stands.

“Tom, trying to help you is a pointless endeavor. Caldik was a hero’s mission, an evacuation that will be remembered in Starfleet history as a mobilization of humanitarian resources at a time when the fleet was decimated. You were in line for a promotion when you abandoned your post, disappointing people who depended on you.”

“I …” Tom has shrunk back in his seat, stilled and wilting in the heat of his father’s disgust. “I took official leave.”

“Official leave?” The admiral harrumphs. “You got tangled up in a relationship when you could have stayed sharp, kept nimble, flown to new heights. Instead, you threw away a promising future so you could learn to fix boo-boos in the bowels of a ship’s sickbay. And now, if the prospect of time apart from one person gets you worked up, then you’ve only proven your weakness. At every turn, you’ve refused to live up to your potential and, frankly, I want nothing to do with you. Get out of my office.”

Tom rises from his seat as if he’s in a dream — a nightmare — and walks toward the door. Kathryn wants to stay, to fling accusations back at the admiral, but Tom doesn’t push her to deal with her mother so she has no right to try to fix his relationship with his father.

Then they’re on one side of the door and the admiral is on the other, his finger on the panel to slide the door shut when Tom turns and his voice is small when he says, “Dad, I tried to be the person you wanted me to be, tried to believe that’s what I wanted, too. But I’ve finally found a passion for my career and a partner who makes me happy and if you could just be proud of me for —”

The door slides shut in Tom’s face. 

***

**_USS Voyager_ , 2377 (Author, Author)**

She doesn’t have time for this.

But the macabre popularity of the Doctor’s _Photons Be Free_ holonovel has kept the holodecks busy, and a gap in the schedule was too tempting to pass up — even if she should be waiting outside Astrometrics right now.

“Lieutenant Marseilles,” Kathryn circles the Doctor’s _roman à clef_ for Tom, “it’s unacceptable to use your sickbay shifts to perform crew checkups via tongue-to-tongue examination. Don’t abuse your position as the _Vortex’s_ medic.”

The hologram sneers at her, its caterpillar-like moustache lifting. “You’re wasting your time. You saw how the captain protects me. I’m untouchable on this ship. You know it, I know it, and my wife knows it. Step out of line with me, and Captain Jenkins will decompile your program.”

Another holographic crewmember arrives seeking “medical” assistance from Lieutenant Marseilles, but this isn’t working — and the chronometer is ticking.

“Computer,” Kathryn speaks quickly, “end program and display characters Lieutenant Marseilles and Captain Jenkins.”

The simulated sickbay is replaced by the hologrid. The two holograms shimmer into existence side by side, the dark rag of hair on her doppelgänger’s head as unattractive as the helmsman’s moustache.

“Why does Captain Jenkins protect Lieutenant Marseilles?” Kathryn pushes aside her déjà vu from Tuvok’s holo-program. That was years ago. She and Tom are solid friends now.

And yet … while the Doctor’s entire holonovel is insulting … something about this aspect of the scenario won’t stop tickling her brain. 

“The captain makes sure every member of this crew knows to butter my bread, from her to Commander Katanay and on down the ranks. Even a demotion doesn’t stick,” the mustached hologram boasts. “But you shouldn’t ask questions. The last EMH who tried to understand the special connection between Jenkins and Marseilles … you know …” The hologram’s fingers slash across its own throat. 

The oxygen concentration in the room is not depleted. Kathryn just needs to breathe normally. 

“Captain Jenkins, is this true?”

The hologram chortles. “Sure.”

“Why?”

Both holograms blink rapidly and in sync. “That information is not available. Files deleted. Files deleted. That information is not available.”

“Computer, deactivate characters.”

Her heart hammers, but there’s no time for that. 

The holodeck door hisses.

She nods to crewmembers in the corridors. 

“You are late.” Seven of Nine informs her as she enters Astrometrics. “You have missed forty-four seconds of your three-minute allotment of comm time to the Alpha Quadrant.”

“Go ahead and connect the call.” Kathryn stands in front of the massive, curved screen.

Her heart hammers in a different way.

Maybe it won’t be so bad.

Maybe ...

There’s static, then Gretchen Janeway appears. 

What’s wrong with her mother’s mouth? It’s … smiling?

Time stops.

Not in a bad way, like time travel or a temporal anomaly.

Like family dinner with a father who doesn’t work late and a sister who chatters about art class and a mom who can talk about anything, any topic, even Starfleet.

“Oh my goodness, Kathryn!” Her mother’s laugh. When was the last time she heard her mother’s laugh? “I know it’s silly, but I always picture you wearing the new uniforms. I love your red shoulders, though. Very retro.”

What looks like a forest is through a window on a wall that Kathryn doesn’t recognize.

“Mom, it’s good to see you. Where are you?”

“Betazed!” Her mother lifts a chalice as if it’s a champagne glass ready for a celebratory toast. “I live here now. Kathryn, I’m so sorry but when I sold the farmhouse, I recycled just about everything, including your childhood things. I hope you understand.”

A sensation of buoyancy fills Kathryn’s chest, of rising through pressure to well-earned ease. “I understand. That’s — that’s great, Mom. You needed to get out of that farmhouse.”

“Tell me about it.” Her mother’s eyes roll. “What a mess I was. When your ship disappeared, Starfleet set the families up with counselors. I resisted, of course, but, well, it’s a long story and we don’t have much time. How are you? Are you doing all right? Starfleet has been marvelous at keeping us updated on your ship’s position and we have a little tracker map set up in the informal living room.”

Informal living room?

Starfleet is marvelous?

_ We? _

“I’m all right.” A necessary lie. “Mom, are you living with someone?”

“Captain, fifteen seconds remaining.”

“I heard that. Kathryn, just let me say that you need to _embrace_ your emotions. You were raised to bottle things up and I don’t blame myself because your father and I didn’t know any better, but there’s beauty everywhere and you’re seeing parts of our galaxy that no human has ever laid eyes on. Until we speak again, I wish you love and light and joy.”

Her mother blows air kisses.

The transmission ends.

And the knot of guilt over not having done more to help her mother, the knot Kathryn lived around for so many years until became a part of her, that knot unties and, yes, she needs to have another chat with the Doctor about his holonovel — and to figure out a way to smooth over the gaps in his memory — but her mother has found herself again, which gives Kathryn hope that, once she gets her crew home, she can do the same.

///

**_USS Odyssey-A_ , 2377**

Tom’s sweat-dampened head falls to her bare chest. He whispers, “Holy shit, I like you so much.”

A sated grin spreads across her face. 

Her fingers become lost in his blond hair, so soft, and she whispers back, “I like you, too, you beautiful man.”

Someday, bulkheads will be better soundproofed. 

But quiet lovemaking is worth it to be in command of this brand-new, Galaxy-class ship with family quarters ... even if her mother-in-law is in the room next to theirs. 

Kathryn is still getting to know Julia Paris.

The woman is shy, skittish, has trouble speaking or even knowing her own mind. 

Which is understandable considering she spent decades under the thumb of a man who dictated her every move.

Julia thanks them every day, says the flowers Tom sent with a card informing her of Kathryn’s pregnancy — the only way he could think of to circumvent his father’s control over his mother’s communications — was what she needed. Learning there would be a grandchild her husband wouldn’t allow her to meet finally gave Julia the courage to leave Admiral Paris. 

His subsequent decision to fill his time with work — going to his office even on his days off, including the day of the Breen attack — was his choice and his choice alone, Julia has told Tom enough times that he finally believes it.

And, it’s not the same, but Julia hugs her son and tells him that she’s proud of him. 

Her heart, though, clearly belongs to her granddaughter. 

Baby Shannon is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed early walker, eager talker of a language only she understands, and devotee of carefully cut pieces of peanut butter toast. 

Someday, they’ll take her to Bloomington to meet her other grandmother. 

Kathryn tries not to think about golf clubs in the closet. 

Because she has a ship to run, complete with the best chief medical officer she could ask for, and she and Tom are already hoping to grow their little family and, right now, she’s a contented, slightly sweaty tangle of limbs with the man she loves. 


	13. Epilogue — We Take Care of Each Other. Everywhere.

**_Voyager_ at McKinley Station after returning home from the Delta Quadrant, 2378**

“I’m sure you understand the importance of keeping the results of your exams confidential.” The doctor at McKinley Station taps and the display depicting two, identical sets of RNA quantum drift goes dark. “Information discussed here doesn’t leave this room.”

Kathryn glances at _Voyager’s_ EMH. His arms are crossed, mobile emitter glinting in the bright light of the infirmary, ethical subroutines seemingly locked in battle with his wounded pride. 

She looks to Tom sitting on the biobed next to hers. He’s pale with dark circles under his eyes that speak to his fatigue from helping care for a newborn. Miral is brown-eyed and cheerful — already a daddy’s girl who loves to keep a fierce grip on her father’s finger, even when B’Elanna nurses her.

From his place standing behind Tom, Admiral Paris clears his throat. “Let’s give these two officers a moment of privacy.”

The admiral’s hand rests on his son’s shoulder. There’s a squeeze of support, then the room is empty except for Kathryn and Tom.

He slides off his biobed. 

Eases onto hers. 

Their legs dangle side by side.

“How are you doing with all this,” he exhales a long, slow breath, “Kath?”

It doesn’t hurt. She had wondered if it might, but hearing Tom say her name is just another adjustment to being home.

“I’m all right.”

His chuckle is dry. “I thought we didn’t lie to each other.”

She lets herself look into his eyes, really look into his eyes ... and the safety and understanding loosens the logjam in her mind. “I don’t like to think of myself as a copy.”

His arm goes around her shoulders, warm and comforting.

“You’re not a copy, Kath. I’m not a copy. You know the quantum mechanics better than that. This is just more information to expand what the Doc found years ago — that, statistically speaking, there are probably two people who were us and now they live in a whole other reality and maybe they’re happy.”

There’s an ache in her chest. 

“I hope they’re friends. Your … your friendship is important to me, Tom. I’m … I’m going to miss you.”

She tells herself that she’s glad to be home. 

She wants to visit her mother, learn to like her sister, take some time to get to know herself again. A partner is a possibility, but not as important as it once was.

The Delta Quadrant taught her the difference between loneliness and being alone.

“I’m going to miss you, too, but we’ll see each other sometimes. I know it’s not the same, but ....” His chin quivers, just for a second, then he jumps off the biobed and pulls her to her feet. “C’mon. For old time’s sake.”

And she understands and then they’re striding through the corridors of McKinley Station and he sweet-talks a shuttlecraft attendant. Then it’s just the two of them and they arc toward the moon.

He loops through the gravitational field.

Swings around New Berlin.

Then dips so close to the Sea of Clouds that it’s like she could touch them.

Her fingertips go to the viewport. “Thank you.”

He nods.

And she knows it’s going to be okay. 

///

**_USS Odyssey-A_ at McKinley Station for crew rotation, 2378**

She’s been reading mission logs from _Voyager_. 

The miracle ship.

She doesn’t know how Captain Freeman did it, all those years cut off from Starfleet and the Federation.

It must have been incredible, though. So many first contacts, so many discoveries — it gives her a tinge of jealousy, she must admit. She can’t wait to talk with Tuvok. He’s gone to Vulcan and T’Pel says he'll comm when he’s able. 

Another log entry catches her eye.

_ Voyager_ was duplicated after passing through a plasma drift. The crew figured out what had happened because spatial scission only works on matter, not antimatter. 

Plasma drift.

Her eyebrow rises.

She uploads the information to a padd and makes her way to sickbay, nodding to crewmembers, hand over her stomach because she’s barely showing and she plans to announce her pregnancy once the current crew rotation is complete. Julia has been busy with the new family welcoming committee and Shannon’s preschool class has already added three students with more expected once the _Magellan_ arrives tomorrow.

Sickbay is busy. She finds Tom in his office.

“I’d like a data consultation when the CMO is available.” She holds up her padd.

He waves her in. “These lab results can wait. What do you need, Captain?”

She sits in the chair across from his and pushes the padd across his desk. “I’d like your opinion before I share mine.”

He takes the padd.

He reads.

And reads.

His eyebrows shoot up. “Holy shit.”

“Exactly.” She watches him scroll to the end of the mission log. “Tom, I had that concussion so I don’t remember details of what happened in the runabout. Did you use engines to get us back to the starbase?”

His head shakes. “We had a sudden loss of antimatter. Power was dropping and the storms within those plasma drifts were particularly rough. All I had were thrusters.”

Her skin prickles in goosebumps.

He takes a few deep breaths.

Reaches for a medical tricorder.

Walks around his desk to stand next to her. 

Waits for her nod of permission.

Scans her.

Scans himself.

Then dips the tricorder to scan the baby in her belly.

“We have RNA quantum drift.” His voice is clear, steady, medical training kicking in to depersonalize the news as he stares at the tricorder screen. “The baby doesn’t, presumably because the fetal RNA normalized to its own universe.”

Her throat is dry. “Did we jump universes, exchange with other versions of ourselves? Or do you think we duplicated, creating two quantum realities, but we don’t truly belong here — or there — because our quantum signature wouldn’t match either new universe?”

“I think,” he closes the medical tricorder, “that we’re here, we’re happy, and our RNA is as stable as any I’ve seen. If I had to guess, I think we duplicated and one universe split into two.”

My God.

She had been so angry with him at the bar, so angry with herself. Her mind had been filled with worries that had amounted to nothing, that disappeared like the headaches that used to plague her.

“What if we hate each other in the other universe?” Her hands tremble. “What if we never spoke again? What if we didn’t look out for each other and didn’t —” 

He tips her chin and she looks into his eyes, really looks into his eyes … the same as ever, understanding and safe. “There is no universe where we don’t have a connection, Kath. We take care of each other. Everywhere. Nothing will convince me otherwise.”

She manages a shaky smile. “Is that your medical opinion?”

His thumb strokes her cheek. “It’s my every-fiber-of-my-being opinion.”

He takes her hands, pulls her to her feet.

“C’mon. I’m giving you an order, Captain, and that’s to come with me.”

Corridor. 

Turbolift. 

Corridor again. 

Shuttlebay?

He opens a hatch, takes the conn and taps for pre-flight as if he does it every day, not every so often or on vacation. The shuttle rises and exits the shuttlebay.

He arcs toward the moon.

Loops through the gravitational field.

Swings around New Berlin. 

Then dips so close to the Sea of Clouds that it’s like she could touch them.

Her fingertips go to the viewport. “Thank you.”

He nods.

And she knows it’s going to be okay.


End file.
